


The Color Series

by TriskyMcCloy



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 23:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 128,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10672803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriskyMcCloy/pseuds/TriskyMcCloy
Summary: Post Brian/Justin S3 fanfic that alternates between the present and the future.





	1. Black

I once had a dream in pitch black, colors swirling into nothingness behind the iris of my mind's eye. The sound of black echoed in the empty hollow of voices, a cacophony of shrillness piercing my eardrums. I gulped for air that seemed immobilized in my lungs. Limbs thrust out, grabbing me from all directions, my own useless in fighting back, numb and paralyzed. All I could see was the gleam of coal colored distortion, somewhere beyond my scope of vision. I could feel myself reaching out, trying to grasp it in my mind, but every part of me was useless in fighting the inevitable. The further I reached out, the further it retreated and the closer it seemed and the further I'd reach, again, and the closer voices got, the further I retreated, the more the limbs pressed up against me, the less I could respond, the less I could breathe. Groping, grasping, reaching, unable to breathe, unable to see, could not hear. 

I dreamed of black, the absence of color, only it wasn't a dream.

I was wide awake, as I am now.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but my clock tells me otherwise, 2:45a.m. Made it in, with time to spare. I haven't yet remembered to forget that I don't have to follow rules anymore. I can come and go as I please, when I want, stick my tongue wherever the hell I damn well please, on as many different occasions as my extra sensory devices will allow, and since it's never disallowed anything or anyone in the past, that could take up quite a bit of time. I don't know when I'll be able to squeeze it in, between ad mock-up's and fucked up copy, extra curricular pharmacological experimentation, finding something to fill those drawers that are currently occupied by endless pairs of khakis. Khakis for Christ's sake. I'll have to cover up the bare space on the walls, every last fucking inch in plaid wallpaper if I have to, just as long as I don't have to see what's no longer there. Maybe I can have my table back, and not have to trip over those damn wires in the middle of the night, stumbling back from my middle of the night cravings for that sugar and fat he calls food, which might open some time up, since I won't have to sweat my ass off, as often, working out all that temptation.

On the other hand there are a lot of things I'll have to relearn that'll take up even more of my time, washing my own back, letting myself relax before I wake up in the morning instead of acting like a human alarm clock, repeating the *tick tick* of "Justin wake the fuck up" over and over, *tick, tick, tick* "wake the fuck up", *tick tick tick*. I'll have to remember who used to wash my underwear before, such a stupid thing, haven't really thought about that in months, it was always just clean and available, I kind of took for granted how it got there after a while. I'll have to recall how to work in silence, if it wasn't the music, or the lip smacking sounds he made in concentration, or the way he'd toss dishes and splash the water all over the place, like he'd lost his interest in it, the minute he was satiated, it was his incessant yapping. I wonder why I hadn't noticed how quiet he'd become, lately. 

I'll have to figure out how to sleep alone, I have no recollection of how to do that, not one fucking clue. I know it requires closing your eyes and relaxing your body, but all I see when I close my eyes is black, and all I feel as I lay is a vice grip seizing my mangled skeletal structure, molding it into a broken pile of shattered bone, pricking my skin.

I'll have to remember that the exhale follows the inhale...


	2. Blue

In art class, when I was 12, they taught us about the primary colors, and how each of them were the basis for all other colors. Blue always stood out to me, as the most ambivalent. It wasn't quite black, and it was too dull to really catch your eye. Red was passionate, yellow was bright and alive, blue was just there. And really what does blue go with? Black and white, or just another shade of blue. Of course there's always khaki, but khaki's not a color, it's a Gap retailers wet dream, and as someone in their target range, I must have gotten dozens of them off by now, partly by choice, partly by circumstance. I dress for function, not for fashion, and my wallet wouldn't allow me to do anything but, at this point in my life.

I think I was wearing blue that night, a blue jacket, with some blue plaid print and jeans, my standard issue outfit. I just wanted to blend in, go unnoticed, until I got my footing.

I remember the first time I saw him, the streetlight blinded part of my vision, and I thought he was wearing a blue t-shirt. It was only when he got closer, that I realized it was charcoal gray.

Blend, blend, bend, bend.

You know I hated that St. James uniform, and now I realize why, it was that same dull, suffocating blue they bury people in, proper and unobtrusive. And I always wondered why they gave brides something blue on their wedding day. Shouldn't that, like, depress them? I mean we have a whole category of music designed specifically for sad times, called the blues, but something blue is supposed to make them happy? How does that work?

I know I have blue eyes, I seem like a hypocrite, but I didn't get to choose what color they were, and they never really stood out to me anyway. I like eyes I can't read, with different specks of color, there's something mysterious about them. Anyone can have dull blue or brown eyes, but if they're hazel or green, or some mix, well then they're not really a color, they're a blend, and you have to work extra hard to capture them.

Gawd, that fucking blue light. It made him seem like some alien escaping from his planet, glowing with long fingers come to take me back aboard the ship. And the sheets... the sheets were blue too. Well except for when I splattered them white. Oh wait that was the duvet, or whatever the fuck he called it. I don't know, to me it was a blanket, a nice, warm, soft place. 

But shit, the bed was comfortable, especially compared to this thing. You wouldn't think it would be, but a quality mattress can go a long way in getting a goodnight's sleep, and eventually I think I just got used to feeling like I lived inside an X-Ray machine. 

Blue, see right through me, see right through his translucent skin, to tangled veins and tense muscles.

Sometimes his arm would be underneath my ribcage and it felt like I was sleeping on a pull out couch, but I never slept more peacefully, even when he'd wake up in the morning and complain that he'd never get any feeling back in his hand, and I'd purposefully lay my weight down some more, as he tried to pull it out from under me. I didn't want to cut his circulation off, but I liked how he'd rub until he got he got some sensation back, it was my favorite wakeup call, and he always made sure I was up, no sleeping in allowed, even if it meant yanking the blanket, I'm sorry, the duvet, fuck it, the blanket, off of me. 

It's a goddamn blanket Brian, a BLANKET. And I'm sorry I shop at the Gap, and your hand underneath my stomach means so much to me, and all it means to you is your hand falling asleep. At least you have a fully functioning hand. Asshole.

He is such an ass, I mean such an incredibly big pain in my ass, and not in a good way. Shape up soldier or ship out, no insubordination, be all that you can be... the Navy sailors wear blue too, don't they? Or is that the Army slogan? Oh I don't give a shit.

FUCKING RAGE! Goddamn, motherfucking RAGE! That's supposed to be red. I'm supposed to see a murderous pool of red blood, that's what you wanted isn't it? It's what you wanted all along, get me so angry and disgusted, I would see red, I would see right through you and run in the other direction.

"Wake the fuck up Justin, wake the fuck up", pull the blanket off of me and wake me the fuck up. Well fuck you, FUCK YOU.

YOU picked the sheets, YOU slept with those damn lights on. YOU let me see right through you, in that scary blue light. YOU shut them off. You did this... you...

You can't see me, couldn't see me then either. Drowning in blue.


	3. White Sheets

"Wake the fuck up Justin," I mutter for what seems like the tenth time, clutching the garishly ugly white sheets, he insists we sleep with every so often, even though they remind me of a hospital ward. I think they were the first set of sheets he bought for himself in that tiny little efficiency he used to have. I shudder just thinking about it. He was so proud of that place, so proud of those sheets, though something tells me he bought them at the Big Q. I never asked, I just itched thinking about them. They're a little more ragged, than they used to be, lived in, he loves them. I can't get him to part with them. 

He's gotten better at this game, seizing the sheet between his legs and not letting go. How many times have I done this in the last three years? We're like Laurel and Hardy without the comedy.

He says something unintelligible, his mouth full of pillow. I swear I could blow dynamite up his ass and he'd just roll over and go back to bed.

I tried my nice approach, pinching the tiny hairs behind his ears, using my breath against his neck as leverage and in return all I got was slapping fingers stinging the bridge of my nose and the corner of my eye. One of these days he's going to cause serious damage with those sharp little fingernails.

I tried the annoying whine of the alarm pressed right up to his ear, and he just buried his face further under the covers.

I tried threats of physical harm, threats of neglect, but in the end the only tried and true method that's ever worked with Justin is to physically disengage him from his comfort zone. Once I see his frame, buck and bend with shivers, I know I'll be getting his patented early morning pissy attitude, and he has the nerve to tell me I'm difficult. Well Sunshine isn't so bright this early in the morning either. But it's as much a part of our morning routine as showering and the first cup of coffee. My day isn't quite as complete when I haven't raised my blood pressure ten points trying to rouse him from the waking dead.

I count to three, give him one more "wake the fuck up" and I pull, count to five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five...

"Leave me alone!"

And he's up, reaching out for his security blanket, but my fist is gripping it so tightly my knuckles have gone paler than the sheet. "Rise and shine, it's your big day. You're supposed to be hung over *after* it's over not before it's even begun." I peek over, in amusement, he makes it way too easy.

"Shut up old man! Am I not entitled to ten more minutes of sleep? I just spent the last two days throwing up."

"And I just spent the last two days cleaning it up, but I'm still wide awake. This is the respect I get for all my hard work?" I sink into the two day old sheets, thankful that his alabaster skin no longer paled in comparison to the stark white beneath him.

"Be forewarned, I can probably still projectile vomit at will, so don't piss me off." He's cute when he's a brat, always has been.

"Try it, and you'll be licking it up," I smirk.

"Ugh! Briiiaan!"

Ah, the lovely timbre of that particular brand of whine, that always managed to stretch my name to six syllables. "Briiiaaan, can we please... Brriiiaaaan, are you listening to me... Briiiiaaaannn I looovveee youuu" To everyone else it sounds like white noise, to me it's the music of my life. Depending on the lilt, I can always tell his mood just from the way he pronounces my name. 

I rest my cheek on his forehead, rubbing against it, feeling for any remaining fever. It'd been a long two days after he'd come home Thursday night looking as white as one of his blank canvases. I hate the sound of retching. I especially hate hearing it from him, and all I'd heard for two days were alternating sounds of throwing up and his particularly defeated "Brian". There wasn't really much I could do for him, other than ride it out and clean up the mess. It all had to come out eventually, in its own time. He's pretty tough, he held up pretty well. "Do me a favor, next time you decide to get sick, do it on one of the days Lucia is here to clean up."

"Yeah, I'll be sure and schedule it accordingly," he rolls his eyes at me. "And will you stop pretending not to feel my forehead, I'm sick, not stupid. I don't run from thermometers like some people I know."

His head settles into the white pillowcase cocked into the space between my neck and shoulder, eyes resting, hands reaching for my arm, trying to wrap it around him. I pull it away, rolling onto my back, he follows, he always does, laying alongside me. "I think there are parasites on these disgusting sheets, eating away at your intestines, that's why you're sick." Little fucker, teeth digging into my shoulder hurts.

"I'm not getting rid of my sheets." He's firm on that, moving away and wrapping himself up in a cocoon of tattered white.

"Forget the sheets, just get up, we've got things to do. It's not everyday you become legal."

"No, not until you apologize."

"For what!?" I consider tying the sheet around his mouth as a gag. Briefly.

"You know what for... Briannn..." he taunts me with that promise of taking away my favorite toy, him, if I don't oblige. Fuck no.

"Fuck no, you must still be having feverish delusions if you think I'm apologizing for insulting your sheets."

"It's not the sheets you're insulting, it's me, you still hate the fact that I make you sleep on them, admit it."

He eyeballs me, from his side of the bed and I groan audibly. He's so much worse when he's sick, every defense down and his lip stuck in a permanent pout. "I can't believe we're having this conversation at this hour in the morning, can we save this fight for later, after you're awake?"

"You're the one who woke me up!"

Oh god, it's going to be one of those days when every little thing I say and do will get on his nerves, and he'll take these damn sheets, fucking ugly sheets, and lay on the couch until I pace around him enough and piss him off to get him into bed. He feels like he's won at that point, like my footsteps have worn him out and begged and pleaded with him to return to bed and he has no other choice because I'm just so aggravating and he can't get a moment's peace. And with all the dignity he can muster, wrapped in his homely sheets, he'll stomp with a huff and throw himself onto the bed. I let him win that one, all the time. It's how I got him back, period. He doesn't know that, but it is. I suppose it really is his victory, because I'm the one doing all the work. Little shit.

"Let's call a moratorium on the sheet discussion, until the next time I insult them."

"Brian..." I know, I know, I'm not getting the point. I know you want to grind the discussion into the ground. I know, I'm a terrible boyfriend, so terrible I just spent the last two days practically staring up your nostrils to make sure you were still breathing under all those blankets, and dumping the puke that didn't quite make it there, into the toilet. I know, you love your sheets because they're yours and you love that you can strangle me with them in this bed, force me to share them and I'll let you, because you're you and eventually I let you get away with everything, anyway. I know all of that.

"Justin, enough. Please?" I silence him with that last second addition, another trick of the Justin trade.

"So what was so important you had to wake me up?" He asks quietly, with only slight interest in the proceedings.

"It's not everyday you turn 21, you want to waste it spending your time in your sickbed?" I lean over him, my elbow holding up my head, hand flat on his stomach, and give him the look that clinches it all, hooded eyes, staring up at him. He has yet to learn how to resist me, when I lead him down the road to perdition with one glance.

He eyes me warily, with good reason, my birthday gifts are legendary. Legendary fuck ups, that is. But this one is good, and he has no idea.

"What do you have planned?"

"Let's just say it starts with a red bow and ends with your fantasy man," I tease. His eyes flash letting me know if I don't pull this off, I'll be sleeping on the floor, with the fucking sheets for a week, and if I think I'm funny, I'll be lucky to see the inside of his ass for the next six months.

"Briaaaannn..."

"Don't worry Sunshine, remember never the same tricks twice."

I kiss him quickly, bitter leftover retch and all and get up from the bed, smiling as I watch him scramble out of the white sheets and hightail it to the bathroom. 

I pick the smelly sheets up and roll them into a ball, stuffing them in the back of the closet, until he finds them again, next time. I can't escape them, when I die they're going to lay them over my coffin and Justin will wail at the injustice of having to lose the sheets too, as they lower my body into the ground.

Next year, I buy him new sheets.


	4. Red Balloons

"Tell me where we're going again?" I am miserable, totally and unequivocally. I'm cold, I'm tired, my stomach is turning again and my eyes are so dry, the fucking Sahara seems like a tropical oasis in comparison. I lean my head against the window of the Jeep watching this interminable red light and slump in my seat, hoping that my obvious unhappiness will garner the slightest bit of sympathy, and we'll just turn the car around and go back to sleep. No such luck.

"To dress you like the man you're supposed be turning into today. Say goodbye to the Garanimals Justin and hello to Osh Kosh B'Gosh," he cackles, loudly.

He's a prick, my prick to be certain, but a prick nonetheless. I knew two days of genuine concern wouldn't last beyond the time it took me to maneuver myself out of the bed on my own. I should get sick more often.

"Please tell me you didn't come up with the idea for this party Brian. There's only so much torture I can take and dignity I have left." Oddly 21 doesn't really feel all that much different than 20 did, then again it could be the dehydration talking, everything feels a little off.

"Wasn't my idea, the munchers thought you deserved a celebration. Imagine that! Two lesbians turning a twink into a man. Just don't go exploring any boxes that aren't on the gift table."

I catch his eye in the rearview mirror as he stifles a laugh at the heat rising to my cheeks, turning them bright red. He's a pig and a prick, but when he's chewing the inside of his lip in amusement, he's about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I let him think he's funny. I let him think a lot of things.

"Are you going to behave yourself at this thing? Or do we have to have that discussion about treating people with respect again?" He hates it when I bring that up, H.A.T.E.S it, it makes him see red, reminds him how utterly powerless he is when I have a point to make, so I bring it up as often as possible.

"I'd have to check my penal code, but I'm pretty sure killing overbearing brats is still justifiable homicide in certain parts of Pennsylvania."

"Penal code?" I mock with disdain, channeling my inner Beavis. "The only penal code you follow leads straight to my ass." 

"It won't be leading anywhere if you don't start acting like a good little grown up," he cocks an eyebrow in my direction. It's his warning signal before the gage springs into full blown lecture mode.

"I'm only taking lessons from the master."

I can't help it, I'm in one of those moods. Maybe it's because I'm just getting over being sick, or because it's my birthday and I'm not yet in the mood to enjoy it. He certainly didn't help matters with his rude awakening this morning, so I'll just torture him all day, because he's such an easy target and nobody else would put up with it. He never *really* gets mad, he only pretends he is to save face. That's how we've gotten as far as we have, we pretend our way through the tough parts. I pretend like he's in control, it makes him feel better, and he pretends he's still the same guy I met almost four years ago, which also makes him feel better. I pretend to be a brat to get my way and force him to react, which makes me feel better. Okay maybe there's not a whole lot of pretending there. The fact that we both know it's all total bullshit is what saves us time and again, and what nobody else understands. Truth be told, I know I have him wrapped around my finger, he won't ever admit it, but he knows. He likes to delude himself into believing he has some kind of upperhand. I just laugh and laugh about that, he has no friggin clue that I know every one of his cues and tricks. After all, I learned them the hard way. The thought makes me grin to myself, a situation he finds unbearable.

"What's so funny," he asks.

"Nothing, I was just thinking about how I spent my first legal birthday." Remind him of some particularly memorable sex and he's amused for at least a few minutes.

"We blew up the colored condoms and tied them to your balls! I didn't think that red dye would ever come off. Shit, kinda makes you wonder what your ass looks like when you're finished using one of those things. "

"As Em always says, It's not a party without blowing up some balloons."

"Among other things..."

We laugh, the quiet laugh that I love, about things that only we'd find funny, and he does that thing that makes my heart feel like it's dripping into every extremity, where he grabs my head and kisses me on the crown, through my hair and all, and rubs under my chin with his long fingers. I love it even more, because I know how hard it is for something like that to come naturally to him, and it's enough now, that he at least makes the effort. I know it's incredibly schmoopy, but it's my birthday, I'm allowed to be sentimental. And I'm still sort of sick, so I can just write it off to being medicated. That's how we'll pretend this never happened for future reference. Somehow it works for us.

"You're not going to give me an argument if I pick out a shirt for you, are you?"

"Brian I don't care what I buy, how long have you known me? Have I ever cared about what I was wearing? I can just wear a shirt and some khakis." I think I can see his heart lunge into his throat every time I use that word. Oh the pain I cause my prickish, piggy little man. I am his payback for being such an elitist label freak. I rule the world, and the rest of the sheep and I will conquer it and cover it over with khaki and white sheets someday. We'll be like the China Wall, the only other man made construct visible from outer space.

He clutches his chest in utter despair, I just wound him over and over.

"Brriiiaaann, do we have to go shopping? I could use another couple hours of sleep." I'm not above begging.

"You can sleep when we're done. I'm *not* going to this party with you in kha... those pants. I'm turning you out to the world today, you have to look presentable."

"I'm pretty sure I was naked at my worldwide debut."

"See what scary surprises those boxes produce, bodily fluids included? I warned you."

"Brian! You are so disgusting." Ugh. I don't want to think about my mother's box. I am *not* thinking about my mother's box. I shove his traveling hand away from me.

"Stick with me, I'll have you all cleaned up and ready for the world in no time."

"If you haven't made me lose my lunch all over whatever expensive outfit you pick out, by then. And what is this becoming a man, ready for the world shit? Are you planning on evicting me tonight?" He's been awfully secretive lately. I figured it had something to do with my birthday when I came home and found he'd marked it as D-Day in big red letters in his day planner. The scary thing is he actually seems pleased with himself over whatever he's planning, which creeps me out even more than all these cryptic hints.

"Quite the contrary." He puts on his indifferent face, I'll get nothing else out of him, which never stops me.

"What are you planning Brian?" I need a plan of response, or at the very least damage control.

"I told you it starts with a red bow and ends with your fantasy man, now stop fishing, it gives you worry lines."

"Brian, no matter what you say or do," I sidle closer to him, giving him by best sweet, innocent smile, "you will always start sagging long before I do." I cup his balls in my hand and give them a nice firm squeeze.

And then I pretend his lap is a big red balloon and I blow.


	5. Gray

I’ve stared at this canvas for an hour, willing my hand to move, even if it’s just to draw stick figures. At this point, I don’t care, I just want something to come out. I have no place else to go, no place else I want to be. It’s cloudy and gray outside, even the snowflakes that refuse to stop falling, though it’s already April, seem dirty somehow. In Pittsburgh, it always feels gray, it must be all the cement. I think I heard it referred to as an industrial city once, a long time ago. That’s us, industrious little hamsters that manufacture crap, day in and day out. And here I sit, unable to even draw a straight line, without the effort of a thousand pounds weighing down my hand. It aches sometimes, when I use it too much or for long stretches of time. I haven’t used it once today, but it’s throbbing, and so is my back, and my neck and my head for that matter. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love Daphne, she’s a great friend, but sleeping on the floor of her dorm room for the past two days has rendered me permanently damaged for life, between the knots in my muscles and the ringing in my ears from her suite mates. I never realized just how shrill a pack of girls can be. I know I shouldn’t bite the hand that’s helping me out for a few days, at least, but if I had to hear that Chastity, Jesus what a name, talk about her boyfriend and his being more interested in his frat parties than her and the rest of them console her, for half a second more I’m sure I would have killed her and her boyfriend would have thanked me. It would have been a death for the betterment of humanity. I just wanted to scream “you have no fucking clue” but she probably wouldn’t have even heard me over the sound of her endless self-pity.

Dammit! I hate that, I hate when I hear his voice in my head, coming out like they were thoughts of my own and not just an echo of him. I can hear him so clearly, picture him so easily, bored out of his mind or trying to ignore someone, usually me, when they just keep talking, and talking, and talking some more. Sometimes it’s funny, the way he reacts like the rest of us would love to, but don’t have the balls to actually do. It’s just not that funny, when it’s directed at me, even though I probably deserve it every now and then.

I wonder what he’s doing, how he’s sleeping at night. I know it’s only been two days, but I just... I can’t. I can’t help it, I’ve tried but I can’t. I’ve just wanted to hide away from the world, from Ethan, from him, from everyone. I don’t even want to be here right now, but Daphne forced me to leave her room for the first time in the last 48 hours, told me if I missed my classes she’d throw my ass out. I think she’s just sick of seeing my face, I don’t blame her, I’ve been sick of seeing it myself, for the last few months.

“Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face.”

I hate that fucking song, and it’s playing on an endless loop in my brain every time I look out the window. I didn’t really know where else to go on Saturday, when I left Ethan’s place in the morning. I couldn’t go home, obviously, couldn’t go to my mom because it’s just too embarrassing and I don’t have the energy to deal with that yet, and I couldn’t go to Debbie because that would mean inevitably seeing Michael at his appointed diaper change. Here’s a knife Mikey, do us all a favor and cut the strings already, and when you’re done, you can stab me in the back with it, some more. 

I wonder if he’s thinking about me, or if he’s just thinking about where to stick his dick next. Maybe he brought Rage home and fucked him, until he was cross eyed, maybe he’s still fucking him now, maybe he’s installed a revolving door, to make it easier. Whatever he’s doing I’m sure Michael is there giving him puppy dog eyes and reassuring him that he was absolutely right about everything, and always will be.

Is that what he wanted from me? Make sure I was housebroken and ready to fetch and lick on command? “Roll over”... and play dead. I didn’t think it was, for the longest time, it seemed like he was responding to me, he was someone different, who wanted me, wanted to be with me, he was trying, in his own way and then he just stopped. Maybe that’s as far he’ll ever get. But it’s still further than anyone else has gotten him, that has to mean something.

Shit, why can’t I just hate him? It would be so much easier for everyone. I’m not being fair to anyone right now, and I don’t even care. I guess I am just a selfish twat. Is it so wrong to wallow in self-pity? Well as long as your name isn’t Chastity and your voice doesn’t register in the dog whistle range, at least. I blame it on the weather, they do say that it affects your mood don’t they? Well gray skies have definitely cast a pall on my mood, and from the looks of whatever I’m smudging with the charcoal, it’s affecting my art, as well, because it just looks like one big blob of gray. When the hell did I start moving my hand on this canvas? I don’t even remember picking it up. I guess there’s nothing safe anymore, no real escape. It’s all tainted.

“I thought I’d find you here. What are you working on?”

His voice startles me, and my head snaps back so fast I think I might have loosened a disc, or maybe it’s just two days of sleeping on a floor, three if you count that thing on wood.

“Uh... I don’t know, I’m just messing around.” I try to smile, really I do.

“I thought maybe you’d run off with your other lover,” he jokes.

I don’t laugh.

“Wolfram went missing for a few hours the other day, I thought maybe you had kidnaped him.”

In my head I think laugh, on my face I smile blankly, in my gut, I’d like to stab him with Mikey’s knife. I don’t know where I picked up all these violent tendencies. It’s not his fault, not his fault, it’s my fault, all mine, no one else’s, he just came along for the ride.

“I’ve been staying with my mom for a couple of days, just getting my head together, figuring out what I want to do next.” I don’t know why I’m lying, it’s become second nature, apparently. I just don’t want him... to know... to know, fuck me, I don’t want him to know I’ve spent two days crying on the floor of the girl I’ve known since I was 7, it just seems like such an immature thing to do, and I just don’t think he’d understand.

“Your mom, huh? She fed you, kept you warm, gave you a place to go. It’s nice to have someone you can rely on.” 

“Yeah it is.” Why we’re even keeping up the pretense of this being true is way beyond my scope of understanding, at this point. 

“She forgot to give you a change of clothes.”

“All of my clothes are at home.” I wonder if this great big, gray industrious city manufactures muzzles.

He looks at me with a flash of something, I’m not even sure I’m seeing... Regret, he looks at me like he regrets ever having met me, knowing me, loving me. I’m a disappointment to him. Get in line, buddy.

“Did you come up with any plans? You’re welcome to stay with me until you figure something out, or maybe you won’t have to leave at all.” He leans towards me, invitingly. I have an urge to take him up on the offer, I won’t deny that, anything has to be better than living in limbo. But I just can’t. I won’t. 

I *won’t*. I ... *won’t*. He *won’t* what? Love me? Tell me so? Go any further?

“Justin...” I shake the cobwebs of my gray matter loose and look directly at him.

“Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.” Sometimes a man just needs to know when to ask for help. Shutup Brian, go back into your corner and be quiet.

“Okay, I won’t pressure you,” he smiles. “It was just really nice being able to spend the night with you and I’d like to do it again, as soon as possible.”

Maybe I imagined the regret, I must have. If something as simple as spending the night makes him so happy. Are they still using that one? I force myself to smile. I can’t deal with all of this right now, let him think what he wants. In fact he can do all of the thinking for both of us.

“So what are you working on? Your hand was moving so fast when I came in, I thought you were going to rub right through the canvas.”

He comes around to my side of the easel, and looks over my shoulder at the charcoal gray figure of my dreams. I see his face, I watch his eyes fill with the same look I thought I saw a minute ago, and I look at the spot his line of vision has descended upon.

And there it is, the truth, in shades of gray.


	6. Brown

Brown Technologies Limited, how the fuck do you market a company with no discernible reason for existing to 99% of the population? Maybe I can just steal my Brown Athletics campaign and cross out the Athletics. If you’re going to steal an idea, may as well steal it from the best. No one would fucking notice once they saw a bunch of hard naked asses. The American consumer, is nothing, if not a herd of sheep willingly leading themselves to slaughter. Slap a pretty face on a package, show a little skin, add an obscure song from some dead 70's relic and watch them come in droves. Brown Athletics, Gap khakis, no one would even notice they were being sold semi-conductor chips. We just sell them all this shit, sell them all these lies, tell them how to think, how to be, market our very own brand of subliminal brainwashing. Nothing says I love you like a diamond you can’t afford, miss that birthday, send a teddy bear, there’s one for every occasion. You will all fall in line, and if you don’t there’s a Hallmark card with some little quip that will make it all better.

The Beam in my glass is brown, maybe I can just get the whole world drunk and have my way with them. No, no, even better I can use one of those dogs, the ones with the big brown eyes, brown and white skin, and the floppy ears, what the fuck are they called? I don’t know, they remind me of Mikey, big sad eyes, permanently pouting. Fucking Mikey. How many times did he call me today? I lost track after the fourth call. Fucking Mikey. The only thing I need is another drink, and an ad campaign, not your goddamn sympathy. That Ethan kid he had brown eyes didn’t he? Shit-stained eyes.

Hahahaha! That’s perfect, I can just have Mikey and Ethan wearing one of those doggie costumes and taking a dump and the slogan would be “Would you rather have this Brown or this Brown.” I’m a genius. I amaze myself. I don’t know what’s funnier the thought of them both sitting in their own shit, or the look on Vance’s face when he sees it. The funniest thing of all would probably be my ass out on the street slugging back a bottle of Beam and singing for my supper when he was done. Maybe Ethan could play the violin, fucking little beggar boy pretending to be some homeless, misunderstood, tortured waif and Mikey would stand and pout and nod sympathetically. It’d be brilliant. I raise my glass in salutation to myself, laughing hysterically, so loudly and for so long, I don’t even notice him standing at the open door, staring at me, staring right through me for a good long minute. 

God his eyes are blue, like cobalt blue, especially when they’re intense and focused. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. Maybe he has, maybe I’m really dead right now and I don’t know it yet. Maybe I’ve been dead all along.

“Close your mouth Justin, unless you’re planning on putting it to good use.” I blink, no I swallow and I blink, the Beam has started dribbling out of my mouth in the form of shitty things I know I shouldn’t say, but I say anyway, on purpose. And if he doesn’t like it, it’s too damn bad.

He just looks at me, exasperated, repulsed, with that fucking sympathetic look everyone has been giving me. He feels sorry for me, sorry for everything about me.

“I didn’t think you’d be here. I just came to get my stuff.”

Where did you think I would be? Same place everyone else thinks I am. 

He’s awkward, like that first night, all jitters, staring at everything in awe, fascinated by the train wreck he was about to embark on. Should have bought a ticket to someplace else, nothing but boggy marsh to wade through here, just ask Brown Tech, I’m about to sell them as an alternative to shit.

“What are you going to carry it in?” Didn’t think about that did you? Didn’t really think that far ahead, like usual. Just saw what you needed to do and did it, and you’ll worry about the rest later. I can see from what he’s wearing, that all he’s thinking about is needing a change of clothes. Looks like Ethan didn’t give him one. Strange.

“I’ll just grab a garbage bag or something.”

“You can get what you need for now and leave the rest until you work something out.” I turn away from him, turn my attention back to my old friend Jim. Can you hear me, do you hear one fucking word I’m saying?

I listen to his feet padding across the floor stopping in the cabinet for a bag, looking in the sink at my two day old plates, not his usual quick steps, they’re slow and deliberate, like he can’t even lift his legs to carry him from one room to the next. Maybe Ethan fucked him so hard, he can’t walk without effort. Maybe he’s remembering what I feel like inside him. I hope he misses it, I hope it’s so empty in there, that six fists wouldn’t fill it up. I watch him, through the panels, surveying the dump that is my bedroom at the moment, bed undone, glasses on the nightstand, clothes strewn all around. It was just too much effort to clean up after myself the past couple of days. It’s not like I had anyone to impress anyway. He works quietly, opening drawers, stuffing khakis in his garbage bag. Good, that’s where they belong anyway, he should have done that a long time ago.

He stops mid-stuffing and turns, watching me watch him. He looks like he might want to say something, but can’t bring himself to. Say it, fucking say it Justin, tell me how sorry you are, what a big mistake you made, how you didn’t mean to hurt anyone, you weren’t thinking, you’re sorry and you want it all to go away and what can you do to make it up to me. Fucking yell, scream, throw something at me, I don’t care, just say something, don’t give me that long face full of pity. I know you know how to talk, it’s one of the few things you’re better at, than I am.

He turns, and goes back to the work at hand, and I hear it, that distinct muddled sound I know so well, somewhere between a choke and a whimper. They haven’t invented any allergy medication to stop him, yet.

I get up and I go. To him. Because he knows damn well, I always will, when he sounds like that, and I see my hands, holding the Beam in one and reaching out to his shoulder with the other, and I feel it tense and relax under my fingers, and I don’t dare say a word, I just hold on, steadying my dizzy stance. I close the distance between us, lean over his ear, rest my chin on his shoulder, breathe against him. “Where are you going?” I’m pretty sure I said it outloud. I’m pretty sure I can’t even blame the Beam for letting me. I kiss that soft spot between his ear and his jaw and he lets me. I can feel his cheek cave into my mouth, like he can’t hold it up by himself anymore. He needs a lifeline, someone to pull him out of this, if he’s expecting one from me, he’s got a long wait. He closes his eyes, his head shifting in the general direction of my mouth, and I feel the first sliver of warmth I’ve felt in days, inside my mouth, all around me. And I let the Beam and my tongue say everything my voice will not. I feel his hand, weak as it may be still, gripping my neck, willing this answer to be enough. But I stumble, the glass of Beam spilling out between us, and I let go, looking down at the mess I’ve made, brown puddles all over the floor, on his pants, and he sees what I’m seeing and pulls away, straightening his back, rubbing his eyes free of whatever germs have gotten into them, this time.

“I’m leaving.” Shutup Justin, shut the fuck up! Stop talking, didn’t I always tell you, you talk too much. 

“Back to your pretty boy?” That oughta do it.

He’s doing it again, looking right through me, he doesn’t even flinch. And his eyes are so fucking blue, even in this light, I can see how blue they are. I see how they don’t move, they just take me in, and I haven’t drowned in them yet, they haven’t thrown me overboard, they just hold, steadfast.

“I’m going to my mother’s for a while.”

“You haven’t been there, she would have bought you something to wear. And you haven’t been with Ethan either, he would have given you something. Where have you been?” I try not to panic, but he doesn’t look any worse for the wear, it had to be someplace safe.

“Why do you care?” Good question.

“I’m just wondering why you have to go back to your mother’s if you already have a place to stay.” H...E....A....R M...E... Justin, fucking hear me, because I can’t yell any louder.

“I think I’ve outstayed my welcome... with Daphne.”

I just nod my head, I understand. “Daphne loves you, she would never put you out.” Shiny bubbly Daphne, with her brown bouncing head of hair, she always was a good friend, good for a million and one uses.

“There’s not enough room in Daphne’s place, for me.” 

“Have you asked her if there is?”

“I don’t have to, she’s made it pretty clear.” He just stares, such a hard stare, I’m almost proud.

“Maybe you should just... ask... Daphne, what she wants. You might be surprised at the answer you get.” I speak deliberately, tongue snaking around every word. God love you Daphne, even more than my Beam.

“It’s not about what she wants, it’s about what I want.”

“And you want to go live with mommy and play pattycakes with Ethan on the side? I’m sure she’ll be really happy about that.” Fucking Beam. Well at least I can finally see anger forming in him.

“I want...” he sputters, he has no fucking clue how to deal with what he wants, just me, always me. I don’t fit into that khaki strewn garbage bag, do I? “I want you to make this easy for me. I have no choice right now.”

“You always have choices Justin. Always did, always will.” He nods his head at me, unconsciously. He understands. 

I walk away, leave him to finish his business, and go back to my own.

Beam and Brown, what a combo...


	7. Hazel

I can hear the buzz, flying around the front of the office, excitement, a tiny thrill to get through a rather boring workday. I know what Justin sees in him, it'd be hard not to, he is a beautiful man and gay or straight you can't help but look in his direction when he walks into a room. His olive green Prada suit exudes confidence, his hazel eyes clear and alert, always darting around, taking everything in, sizing everyone up, to see how he can best use them to his advantage. And when the receptionist at the front of the office hears him ask for a Jennifer Taylor, it's all she can do, not to trip over her own tongue as she comes to my desk to inform me of my visitor. I almost want her to tell him, no such person exists even though he's staring right at me. I'm sure I'll be the talk of the office, for a good couple of weeks. Just who was that gorgeous man, staring so intently at quiet Jennifer Taylor, whom no one ever noticed before this. 

How do I explain that he's the man who broke my teenage son's heart? I can just hear the watercooler conversation now, "Oh you mean Brian, my son Justin's 30 year old lover. You mean Justin, little Justin? Yes little Justin, he's a man now, in every possible way, Brian saw to that." 

Against my better judgment I make my way towards him, every pair of eyes following my every move. 

"Brian? Is there something I can help you with?" I'm a WASP, we are always polite, always. 

"Can we get a cup of coffee. I need to speak with you." 

His tone is brisk, as if I'm the one interrupting him and not the other way around. 

"I'm awfully busy Brian and frankly if this is about Justin, I really don't feel comfortable speaking with you about him." He looks at me, with those eyes blazing right through me. How many times has he used that look on my baby? 

"Actually I came to talk about the stock market, I was wondering what your perspective on investing is?" He is such a rude, narcissistic shit. As long as I don't say that out loud, I can still qualify as an upstanding member of the elitist class, it's in the rule book. "Of course I'm here to talk to you about him, and if you don't want to do it away from this office, that's fine, I'll be happy to discuss it in front of everyone else." 

He motions as if he's going to make his way back to my desk and settle in for a comfy chat. He certainly makes it difficult to escape him, doesn't he? 

"Meet me downstairs in the coffee shop on the corner in five minutes, and Brian, this had better be worth it." 

I watch him leave, my neck becoming stiff at the onset of one of my migraines. Whatever it is he wants, it can't be good, it never is when it involves speaking to me one on one. I finally have my son back and there is nothing he is going to say or do, to take him away again. I don't care how upset Justin is, how much he thinks the world is ending because his heart is breaking, or how miserable he is about the fact that he has to live at home with me, again, there is nothing, absolutely nothing Brian Kinney is going to do to further ruin my child's life. I know I shouldn't hate him, shouldn't hold him responsible for things he couldn't control, but I do and I wish nothing more than to erase him from Justin's memory, as a bad figment of his imagination. But I am a mother, and I cannot stand to see my child look as hurt and hopeless as Justin has, in the week he's been home. More than anything, I hate Brian Kinney for putting that look on his face. 

And yet I know, no matter what my protestations, my concerns or my desires, he is the only one who is capable of taking that look away, even if he is the cause of it. For that reason alone, I owe him the time it takes to hear whatever he has to say. I don't have to like Brian to understand his place and importance in Justin's life, but I cannot let him do this to Justin again. I will not. 

I think of all the things I want to say, need to say, as I stare at him, in the corner booth head bowed over a cup of coffee, stirring it quietly, looking all of 12, and I know because I'm a mother and I know these things, and I know my son, I know what it is he clings to in his mind, the Brian he sees, that the rest of us do not. I would like to simply hate him, but he makes it impossible. 

I slide into the booth, without fanfare and return his cold, hard stare, hazel eyes that remind me of a cat for some reason. Unlike my Justin, we are two adults and there will be no playing games. "What is it you want Brian?" 

He lights a cigarette and drags slowly, waiting for me to fold first. "How's he doing?" 

His eyes flash a look of genuine concern, and that alarms me, whatever it is he wants, he will not be easily dissuaded. "I understand you feel that you have some kind of right to an explanation, but understand, I won't discuss him with you. Tell me what you want Brian." 

He looks at me with disdain, the iris of his eye turning into a beady swirl, lip upturned in disgust. "Who are you, to judge me?" He snarls the words out, as if they leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth. 

"I'm his mother," I hiss. He may own the cat eye's, but I have the claws. 

"You're the woman who dumped him on my doorstep when he was too much for you to handle. You wanted your son back, I gave him to you." 

He has this way of stinging you, not with acidity, but with truth, and that hurts the most, but I'm not above using his own tricks to turn the tables. "I gave him what he wanted. I gave you what you wanted, what you both needed. Maybe now you can understand the difference. Maybe you understand why people do things they don't necessarily want to do, because it's not about them and what they need. Sometimes another person's needs take precedence." 

He leans back, contemplating my point with puffs of smoke. "Then I'm sure you'll agree with me that what Justin needs, isn't to live at home with you." 

I choke on a gasp, maybe a nervous laugh, I cannot believe his utter gall. "If you think I'm bringing him back to that loft..." 

He silences me with a disbelieving stare. He is easily the most unsettling person I have ever met. "I know Justin, despite what you might think, I probably know him better than you do. And I know he's fucking miserable, having to crawl back home to mommy. It doesn't matter how old you are, once you've been out of the nest, you don't want to go back. Surely you understand that much." 

I don't have to answer him, I am a lady, and polite silence is totally acceptable. 

He continues undaunted, ignoring my niceties, and the vicious urge in my eye to kick him in the shins. "I want you to give him his father back. I want you to give him his life back." 

"Excuse me?" I am totally out of my element. I have a newfound respect for Justin, that he managed to put up with this complicated, strange man for so long. 

"I'm going to give you some money, and you're going to let Justin find a place of his own and you're going to tell him, that his shithead father decided to help him out. You let him pay whatever he can afford and tell him that daddy dearest will make up the difference, and every month I'll give you a check to cover whatever that amounts to." He leans over his coffee, his hands crossed, smiling angelically. 

I am sure my that my face looks frozen in a state of incredulity or disgust, take your pick. I open my mouth to speak, several times, every thought sounding idiotic before it reaches my mouth. I simply have no words. I stare at his hazel eyes, wide open and expressive, and I want to tear them out, sew them shut, I want them to look anywhere but at me. He is serious, there's not a trace of a joke on his face. "You actually expect me to go along with this," I say, after what seems like hours. "Why would I go along with something like this, Mr. Kinney, I just got my son back." I can't call him Brian, not when I'm negotiating for my son. 

"Because it's what Justin needs. He needs to be a man, to feel like he has some power over something. He will never do that if all you do is coddle him and let him be dependent on you. He'll find some way to trip himself up and fall on his face. He needs his fucking father, for reasons I have yet to understand, but he needs to know that somewhere in that cold dead carcass of a heart, his father still feels something for him. Put his needs first, isn't that what you said? If you want him back, you need to let him go." 

There is clarity in his big saucer eyes, specks of something that Justin must lap up, truth, trust, possessiveness, I don't know, but I see it for the first time. 

I see his hazel eyes stripping away the foundation for every argument I might make, before I even begin and I know, in this very moment, that Justin is no longer mine.


	8. Dull Florescents

He looks bored, like he'd rather be anywhere but here, or more likely in bed, sleeping, where I probably should have left him. I would have, but then all I would hear for the next week is how he's not a five year old that needs to be dressed, and what's so wrong with what he wears anyway, it's what he's comfortable in, I need to just accept that, accept him. All of this over a shirt or a pair of pants I may have picked up along the way, because I thought it would look good on him. As simple as that, no other reason, but with Justin there's always some deeper motivation, something I'm not sharing, some hidden insecurity I manage to find just the right way to seize on, without even trying. Some way that he thinks, I wish he were, that I refuse to verbalize. I don't blame him, I certainly don't make it easy on him. But he has to stop these guessing games, stop looking for the monsters under the bed, that he's sure are going to swallow him up one day and spit him out into the cold, dark night. I know what that monster looks like, I see him in the mirror every day. 

Funny shit, that. Coming from me, of all people. 

The only thing that seems to interest him is the curve of my back. I can tell from the way he's staring at the musculature that he's already drawing a picture in his head. He's memorizing my stance and the way the god awful fluorescent lights are casting ugly shadows that make my skin look damaged and weary. I fucking hate dressing rooms and having to try clothes on, in them. I know what I look like, I don't need funhouse mirrors to tell me, from every angle, just how much lower my ass is getting, and how much more my stomach is starting to protrude. He'll memorize every single inch, and put it on paper in some form, so I can be constantly reminded of how he sees me, and in this room, all he can possibly see is every scar, wrinkle and sag. I don't care how beautiful you are, fluorescent lighting kills whatever attractiveness you might have had before you walked under them. 

No wonder why he looks bored he's seen the same routine a hundred times, me pulling at pants, adjusting my package to get them to fit just right, trying on seven shirts in seven different colors and hating every single one of them, because these lights makes everything look ugly. He's an artist, he should know about lighting, and how it can trick your eye into seeing something that's not really there. You would think he'd take that into account when he goes to sit down later and mark this moment for life on one of his sketchpads. But I know Justin, and if there's one place he's totally honest, it's in his art, he won't let himself lie and when he shows it to me later, I'll put on a smile and tell him it's wonderful as always, because he is a goddamn artist, an amazing one, at that. His talent and how he uses it, is a form of art, all unto itself. Well to me it is. He is. 

I'll forever be immortalized in stages, in Justin's eyes, for all the world to see, and I can't stop him, or deny him the pleasure he gets from something as simple as drawing a picture, because for him, it's not that simple. He's capturing something, some feeling that he can't express any other way, his own personal form of communication. I see it in every stroke that he creates, this is you Brian, this is how I see you, and his work is sometimes angry, sometimes haunted, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, but always beautiful, no matter how ugly the subject, it's always a thing of beauty. And I hate that, hate that his head is so clouded by his own imagination, that he can't see how fucking atrocious his choice for a muse really is, standing under these warm, lying lights. I hate how honest and naive his art is, because it's so far from the truth, from reality, that he'd rather deceive himself into believing it exists, than to actually draw what's there. 

How does he not see what's there? Can't he see the scar on my back from when I caught myself on the hanger when I was six, the way my hair doesn't grow quite as quickly as it used to, or the way my shoulders are starting to give me a case of humpback. He has to see all of this, has to see how these unforgiving fluorescent lights embrace every little flaw and throw them back in your face, so you will never forget that you've brought it all on yourself. 

How does he sit here, every damn time we go through this, me trying on clothes he has never showed even a slight interest in, trying not to fidget out of boredom and finding some remote little escape hatch in his head? Why does he do it? What is he going to get out of this, other than a few new shirts he'll throw in the hamper and forget all about anyway? What is so fucking interesting about watching me try clothes on, in the worst lighting imaginable that lets his brain create these pictures that will forever be burned on pages and canvases, forever remind me of who I used to be... 

I look at him, at his concentration, at his focus and I don't get it. I don't understand what it is he sees, how he can change an entire piece by just shifting my body an eighth of an inch in another direction, how none of his pieces ever look like anything he's done in the past, how it's always all new to him. How *I'm* always all new to him, no matter how many times we've done this. 

What happens when his work starts to resemble what I really look like, ten years from now, two months from now? When he takes the blinders off his eyes and sees me standing in a pool of fluorescent lights and he sees those scars, and that falling ass? What happens when it's not just watching me get dressed that bores him? What happens to his work then? 

He looks up, looks at me in the mirror, watching him, and he smiles that fucking smile that kills me, when I'm caught. I'm transfixed at the way everything is always written all over his face, his appreciation, his pride, his glee at having caught me in the simple act of staring at him, his... everything. 

I look at him, all 21 years of him today, in his boring little khaki's and I know there's not a fluorescent bulb in the world that will ever dull the beauty in that smile, and I simply smile back.


	9. Beige Bottoms

"So, what do you think?" He turns to me, grinning broadly at the seven hundredth outfit, he's tried on. 

"I think you look like one of the waiters from Mikey's wedding," I laugh and duck the flying Armani sweater heading straight towards my face. That thing is probably worth more than my entire wardrobe put together, but he thinks nothing of tossing it like it's a dish rag, or my sheets. 

"For that, you get to hang all of this up when we get home." He smiles devilishly, undoing the black tie, with one hand and massaging the zipper of his pants down, slowly, very very slowly, with the other. I try not to stare. I don't try hard enough. "Want to reconsider your assessment?" 

The tie is around the back of my neck, his hands fisted around the ends dragging me bodily towards his mouth before I can even think of a response. I can feel his tongue licking my bottom lip, catching it between his teeth and just sucking before he presses his entire mouth on mine, my breath caught in the space between dizzy and delirious. I've missed this mouth, this tongue rolling with mine, though it's only been gone for two days. I miss it every second it's not attached to me in some capacity. I can feel the intensity of his tongue thrusting around, sucking the air from my lungs into his own, and I know he's missed this as much as I have and that thrills me, sends some surge through my body, into my hands that can't contain themselves and find their way to a zipper, any zipper, into my toes that flap around like little lost seals and my stomach that's expanding and contracting for the first time in two days out of nothing but pleasure. I could just live inside his mouth, stake a claim and never leave. Never ever leave. 

"Your turn." 

Until he tosses me out with an abrupt shove. 

"I already dress like a busboy four days a week, I'll pass." I shove him gently with one hand, and pull his waistband closer to my own, with the other. His hands secure the back of my neck, forcing me to look straight at him. 

"Your ass out of those pants in 30 seconds or I make you try on every single piece of clothing in your size in this store, including underwear, twice." He growls that low mumbling sound that makes all my underwear feel tight at the sound. 

"Fuck you," I grouse, dejectedly. 

"Not right now, but maybe later." And he moves away, leaving my hands grasping at air, at whatever trace of himself he leaves behind. 

I unbutton my khaki's reluctantly, grabbing blindly for the first pair of pants I see, his eyes watching me the entire time, even as he removes the small fortune he's wearing. I love to watch him move in and out of clothes, because I know how much he enjoys looking good, how much care he puts into even the most casual outfit. I like to see the sinewy muscles bend and flex in his back, his shoulders lifting up and down and his calves clenching as he tries to balance on one foot. His body is like a little machine, every wheel and spoke working in unison to form the look, his look, that indefinable thing that I've tried a thousand times to capture and have yet to figure out. Some people call him shallow, and he is, but it's more than that. His talent is creating and projecting an image, selling a product, selling himself to the world, getting them to believe in what he's selling, even if he doesn't, and he almost never fails. He should take pride in that, real pride, not the false pride he hides behind. 

It's his imperfections that I love the most, because he tries so hard to pretend he has none and if you knew nothing about him, you would believe that, but if you really know him, you appreciate his flaws and weaknesses all the more. I sleep next to him every night, I see him wake up with his hair sticking in every direction and crud in the corner of his eye, smell his rank breath after some particularly hard night of drinking. I wash that scar on his back, so tiny you'd have stand half an inch away to see it, but that he's convinced is unsightly. I listen to him kick the scale for lying to him or curse the computer for not cooperating with his latent genius. I can feel his arm reach out in the middle of the night, when he thinks I'm asleep, and pull me so close to him, I may as well be another layer of skin. I hear the desperation in his voice when he's panting and dying for some kind of release and begging me to give it to him. I've seen his face, his real face, lost, broken, flying high, tired and amazed. He tries so hard to shield me from him, and the harder he tries, the more I move in, the closer I get, the more he needs me to keep trying. 

Everyone else thinks he just a shallow shit, dressed up in a Gucci label, and that's exactly what he wants them to see. He's selling them, what they want to buy, and they're more than welcome to it, I'll keep the damaged goods at half price. 

His voice interrupts my reverie. 

"You are not wearing those." 

I look down at whatever he's pointing at, amused at what I find. 

"Why what's wrong with them?" I clench my jaw to keep from snorting out loud. Even my unconscious mind screams 'bore me, I like it'. 

"They're beige!" 

"So? What's wrong with beige?" His stare is mutinous, seizing on my dick, that I shield protectively, keeping his hands off the zipper, as they reach out for it. 

"I didn't spend all that time, picking out all these clothes, so you could wear a $200 version of khaki's." He tugs at my hand, to no avail. 

"That's almost more than I make in a week, you should be happy they're good quality pants with a designer label and everything." I am undeterred on my quest to bore him into submission, it's one of my better qualities. 

"I don't give a shit if they cost $200 or $2000," his hand slithers into my briefs, grabbing hold of the only precious merchandise I care about, "take them off." 

"No." He strokes. Killing me with kindness, shouldn't have taught him that one. 

"Justin didn't you agree to let me pick out an outfit on the way over here?" 

Stroking, fingertips barely touching, up, down, up down. Question? Did he ask me something? 

"I like the way..." balls tight, palm on my head, back and forth, back and... oh ohhhh "... these feel." Will. not. give. in. Will not, will not, will not. Pull back, away, push hand away, his stupid, not yours. Breathe. "If you're not careful," breathe "they're going to have to be dry cleaned before I even wear them outside." 

"That's the point." 

"I'll make you a deal." Compromise, somewhere along the way we figured that one out. He waits, slightly open to suggestion, ever so slight, as I slide out of them and back into my own pants and shoes. "I wear the beige pants that I want and that ugly little cream sweater you've been trying to put me in, forever." See that wasn't so hard. 

"So that you'll really blend into the walls? How are we going to tell the difference if you're in the room or not?" 

"I don't want to stand out!" Give me khaki's or give me death! 

"It's your birthday party, your supposed to be the main attraction!" 

"I'll leave the standing out to you, it's what you do best, and I like it that way." He looks at me, taken aback, like he finally understands the unnatural language I've been speaking all these years and I just told him I was wrong, I really prefer pussy. "What... what are you looking at?" 

"Wear what you want." He waves me off, turning his back and adjusts his jeans, so that they rest just so, on his hips. 

I laugh out of nerves, out of shock. "Just like that? You're not going to argue with me or pout in the corner until I give in and wear what you want me to wear?" 

He turns, an odd glow about him that looks suspiciously like serenity, like acceptance, like something I've never seen before. 

"You're a man, I can't tell you what to wear. Put on whatever feels comfortable." He's almost smiling, his eyes turned upwards, his lips following, but it's a resigned smile and it gets to me and I don't know why. 

"I like these pants, and hey, you did pick them out, so you must have liked them too." 

"They're alright, better than alright. They fit you nicely. Beige is a little boring, but you can make it work with the right shirt, make them look sophisticated." 

Him smiling that resigned, relaxed smile, at 60, casually amused at my stupid antics, the image comes unbidden into my mind. Comfortable, he looks comfortable. 

"I like that black Armani you threw at me," I add quietly, and he picks it up off the floor, handing it to me, "and some of those other pants, they're pretty nice." His hand lingers at the touch. "Thanks." 

"Let's get out of here." 

And I follow, anywhere he wants to lead.


	10. Periwinkle

"Don't you look nice?" 

I turn, startled, and remind myself to lock the door behind me for future reference. 

"Emmett gave me this sweater for my birthday, he said it matches my eyes." 

"He's right". She fusses with the collar, smoothing the edges and pulling the sleeves to better fit them to my arms. I want to yell at her to leave me alone, stop touching me, it's only a sweater, but she seems far away. Looking at her how her baby boy has grown up, no doubt, filling out some dull blue sweater. What was it that Emmett called it? Periwinkle. Why does that word remind me of a shriveled up penis? "You know I brought you home in a blanket this color," she smiles. 

Here we go, our vacant jog down memory lane, when she reminds me of how things used to be, how little I was, how much she loved me from the moment she found out she was pregnant with me, how I will always be her little boy, no matter how old I am. I've heard this story six trillion times, but I let her tell it over and over, because it seems to make her feel better, more useful somehow. 

"And you were deathly afraid you were going to smother me or drop me," I offer with a halfhearted grin. She glances at me, amused at my ability to parrot back the story, word for word. But there's something different this time, some kind of sadness in the way she keeps stroking my cheek. 

"I think periwinkle is your color, it's an evergreen you know, just like you." I nod and look away out of the corner of my eye, because that means absolutely nothing to me, though I get the sense that it should. "No matter what, you are always just so...." 

She's doing it again, that wistful voice and strained smile. If I didn't know better I'd think she was about to cry, like when she told me about my turtle Leopold dying, she hemmed and hawed and talked all around it, about the circle of life and heaven and love and blah blah blah, when all I wanted to know was how we would bury him if we couldn't flush him down the toilet. His shell was too big to fit down the drain, I explained. She never did ask me how I knew that, and I never explained there was a reason Leopold was perfectly healthy one day and dead the next, it was just understood. I just wanted to see if he could swim in there, I seriously miscalculated. What did I know, I was only ten. I was always doing stupid things like that, testing things, testing people, or pushing my luck as she called it. But she has that same pained expression on her face, like she's preparing to hurt me for my own good. I've seen that look before, somewhere. 

"So do you and Ethan have big plans for tonight?" 

"It's just a movie." I move away from her touch, and turn my back to her. I so do not want to have this discussion with her. There's hardly any place to walk in this room, if I go a foot forward, I hit the wall, if I go a foot to the right, I hit the bed, I feel like a caged animal. "And I only agreed to go because the guy in it looks hot." I don't know why I feel the need to throw that in her face, but I can tell she's already getting the wrong impression of this "date", it's made her far too happy. 

"I'm just glad to see you leave your room and do something fun." 

"With Ethan," I add for her, to save us both the time and awkwardness. When he asked me, I only agreed to go because I'd already seen The Talented Mr. Ripley, so I figured I wouldn't be too lost watching some French version of it, Purple Moon, Purple Noon, whatever. He laughed and told me that I was seriously missing out on the finer things in life, like getting to watch Alain Delon act for two hours, that I would probably appreciate him in ways other people couldn't. I have no idea what he was talking about. God I thought he would slurp whatever oxygen was left in the room, when he was pronouncing his name, Alain Delon, Alain Delon. Why yes Ethan, I am too stupid to be as cool as you, and I have to look him up on the web to see what the fuss is about, this knowledge doesn't come naturally to me. Okay, so he is hot, like really, really hot and if anyone deserves to have their eyes compared to periwinkle sweaters, it's him. Maybe blue isn't such a bad color after all. 

"So you must really like this Ethan," she nudges me. 

"He's a nice guy." This Brian, that's what she used to call him. 

"Tell me about him," she pushes her own luck. 

"Mom, it's just a movie." This sweater feels so confining, it's too tight to wear in a room this small. 

"Can I help it, if I'm happy to see you out and about with someone your own age, doing things you should be doing at nineteen, dating, having fun," she urges a little too much. 

"Just say it, mom, you're happy I'm not with Brian anymore." There's no use dancing around the subject we've ignored for a week. If this is what fun looks like to her, then I seriously don't want to know what upset is supposed to look like. 

"I won't deny that I'm glad you're experiencing life Justin, every boy your age deserves a chance at that, and I'm sorry your heart is broken, but you will recover, the world will keep spinning on its axis and there will be a ton more Ethan's in your life, to put a smile on your face, you'll see." 

"I don't want a ton more anyone," I burst out of my skin, yanking the suffocating periwinkle collar away from my neck. Fuck this movie, I just want to walk outside and breathe in some cold, fresh air. I want everyone to leave me the fuck alone. 

"Despite what you might think, I don't hate Brian, in fact I'm very grateful to him in many ways for caring for you, even from afar. I think it motivates, rather... motivated you in ways you didn't even know." She stops abruptly as if she's already said too much. 

"What does that mean?" I can't help myself, anytime someone mentions Brian and love or caring in the same sentence, I feel like a man dying of thirst, waiting for some rainwater to fall magically from the heavens. I keep trying not to be that desperate. 

"I just meant," she looks at the ground, at the wall, at anywhere but me, "that anyone who would sit in a hospital corridor for three days waiting to see if you lived or died and then spend six weeks coming to see you every night, without you even knowing, has to be someone who cares for you on some level." 

"What...?" My mind is a cocoon of seawater, drowning me in questions, the sweater creeping up on my neck, itching my skin, the room feeling even more claustrophobic than it already did, if that's even possible. "Why didn't you tell me?" 

Her face looks tired of me, of the never ending drama that is my life. I almost want to tell her it's okay, she doesn't have to explain, I'll go live my life with a thousand Ethan's and have fun until the day I die, just don't give up on me yet. "Because if he had wanted you to know, he would have told you himself. He would have shown himself. For whatever reason he felt it was best to keep you at a distance, but that doesn't mean he didn't care." 

I chuckle at the absurdity of all of this. This is like that evergreen thing right, I'm supposed to know what the hell she's talking about, I'm supposed to know why some old French actor that's probably dead by now would resonate with me. I'm supposed to read all these carefully crafted cryptic messages from everyone around me and just understand because I'm supposed to be a fucking genius who can read people's minds. I should just know that he cares, just know it, even if he never says so, and just accept what he's offering and just know that he gives a fuck, even when he's a million miles away or right outside my hospital door. I'm supposed to just figure all of this out on my own and just make the right decisions, always, say the right thing, do the right thing, appreciate whatever crumbs people want to give me by way of explanation. I'm just supposed to stop caring and go live my life with a big smile and fuck a thousand Ethan's and make everyone else happy and comfortable. And he can die tragically loving me from afar because he's too goddamn afraid to show his face. Well you know what, hell FUCKING no! 

I start toward the door, I desperately need air, need to get out of this damn sweater which is probably two sizes too small for me. I think everything in Torso is two sizes too small, what the hell was Emmett thinking buying me this thing. 

"Justin wait. Please stop!" I turn at the sound of her broken voice. Because she's my mother, and I'm the cause of all of this. "Honey, I didn't mean to upset you. I was just trying to explain that I don't hate Brian, that you not being with him isn't the reason I'm glad to see you living life." She sounds almost sincere. At least she tries, even when she doesn't get it right, she makes the effort. "I'm just glad that you are alive and well, which isn't something I was guaranteed a year ago, and because you are, I can watch you run around and be stupid and do stupid things, date every boy you meet, get your heartbroken ten times before the week is over, grow into a beautiful young man whose heart is wide open, and the person who gets it, is the luckiest one of them all, even if he doesn't know what to do with it. This is the time for you to figure all of that out, figure out what you really want, without having to settle. That's all I meant, I promise." She closes her eyes, resolving herself not to cry. "That's why I want you to leave." 

Well at least there are no Leopold in turtle heaven explanations accompanying this blow. "You want me to what?" 

"I want you to move out, and live your life. You can't do that here, because I can't have you coming and going at all hours, not in front of Molly, because she still needs rules and structure. And I know you hate being here, having to live with your mother all over again," she pats my sweater absentmindedly, growing more adamant with every word. 

"Where would you like me to go? I can't exactly afford a place of my own." Where the hell is this coming from? 

"I've spoken to your father..." 

"Oh I get it," I cut her off, no further explanations necessary "he doesn't want his queer son influencing his precious little girl." 

"Justin!" My mother never raised a finger to me, all she had to do was raise her voice. "That's not it at all, he's in agreement with me, that you need to be a man. And I'm sorry to tell you, that yes he is happy that you've broken things off with Brian." 

"Of course he is, now if only I'd knock some girl up and marry her and complete the picture." 

"You need to give him a chance Justin. He wants to help you out, he'll pay the difference in your living expenses. We'll look for a place that's reasonable, I'm sure I can find something. It's one of the perks of being a realtor" She's just got it all figured out, doesn't she? How come I didn't get that trait in the gene pool? 

I wonder what he would think if he saw me in my too tight periwinkle blue. "You mean he's willing to support me again, because Brian is out of the picture? He'll pay my tuition?" I don't know why, but the price of my dignity suddenly feels like it's been cut in half. 

Her face blanches, something is not quite right with her, maybe she's sick. "No, he's still adamant that you're attending the wrong school, he won't pay tuition." 

"So wait a minute, you're telling me he'll help pay for my own apartment, but won't pay to put me through school? Forget it, I don't want anything from him." Why do I do these things over and over? Let myself hope for things that will never happen and get smacked down every single time. 

She puts her hand to her temple, like she always does, when a migraine is about to set in, that must be why her face looks so drawn. "He's not ready to get back to the relationship you used to have, he's taking baby steps, maybe the next step will be seeing you face to face. I don't care if you have to think of it as just using him for his money, and getting a good laugh and a big fuck you out of it, I want you to do this Justin, for you, not for him." 

"Mom!" Some things I just don't need to hear. "You really want me to do this, don't you?" 

"Don't do it for me Justin, do it for yourself. That's all I've been trying to tell you." She gives my sweater one last tug and holds my chin in her hand. "Go be young, and be free, Justin. Be alive and be happy." 

She studies my face for a moment, as if to memorize it for all time, because she may never see it again, before closing the door. 

Something tells me though, no matter what I look like now, or what I'll look like ten years from now, upset, happy, she'll always picture me as that baby boy she brought home in his periwinkle blue blanket, terrified of smothering me. 

But I'll be free. I'll be evergreen.


	11. Goldenrod

"I cannot believe that you're sleeping your way through your 21st birthday." 

"I'm not sleeping, I'm daydreaming with my eyes closed." 

"What are you dreaming about?" I tickle his ear with my whisper, mercilessly pinning him to the couch with my entire body on top of his. 

"I'm dreaming about how nice it would be if I could breathe again and live to see the rest of this day." 

He squirms underneath me, but makes no motion to push me off, just to shift behind me, instead of under me. He loves it when we do this, he'd do it every night if I gave him the choice, just lay here and do nothing, but feel each other's chests rise and fall. It is kind of relaxing in its own way, that certainty of someone's breathing patterns falling into rhythm with your own. He likes to lay his hand flat on my stomach and feel it move up and down, it makes him so content it's almost like he can't believe I let him do it, each and every time. It's really not so bad, all of this, this stuff he insists on, once you do it one time, it gets easier every other time. I would never tell him that or he'd have my balls in a sling, even further than he already does. I put up my normal fuss and fight and eventually he gets over it, just as long as I indulge him every once in a while. He's really not that hard to please, I like that about him. He makes my life simple. Well except when he's being a pain in the ass or pushes things too far, which is the other half of the time and then I wonder why I even bother, why he's worth all the aggravation. He'll usually do something stupid at that point to break the ice, like give me that "why are we having this conversation when we could be fucking" look and I have no answer, and I forget what he did to piss me off in the first place and we commence with the important things and forget all about it, until the next time. He puts up with me, to a point, and for that I'm more grateful than he'll ever know, and I'll forgive him anything, as long as he keeps finding some way to keep trying, to make me try harder. 

"Brian?" His voice is muffled somewhere at the base of my neck. 

"I'm daydreaming, leave me alone." 

"Well I hope whoever you're dreaming about has a nine inch cock and the charge of a bull." 

"I've never fucked a matador before, that might be kind of hot...without the bolero." 

"Will wonders never cease, there's someone you haven't fucked after all." 

"On second thought, he might run in the other direction when I come barreling at him, and I don't do sissy boys." 

"You do me." 

"Yeah, but you're more ox than lamb." 

"Gee thanks. Just what I want to be known as, a castrated animal." 

"Anytime..." 

Any second now... 

"Brian?" 

And he's off! Making a wide turn around the ring, flying at the red cape, but wait something distracts him, the sun blinds his eyes, he shields them and sees the matador rise from the ground triumphantly, golden rod protruding from his pants, drawing grasps from the crowd and silencing his young steer. 

"Earth to Brian." 

The golden rod dims substantially. 

"Yes, Justin?" 

"If you were going to be daydreaming, what would you be dreaming about?" 

I know the answer to this, I know what he wants to hear, you Justin, always you, and only you. Well that's crap, I might not be allowed to fuck other men in his presence, or in this loft, but my mind is off limits, no matter how close by he is, if for no other reason than for the sake of my sanity. I must have been insane when I agreed to those terms, or so goddamn horny and distracted by his golden rod, I didn't know what I was saying. None of which explains, of course, why I've continued to follow along with these demented practices, or why I guilt trip myself into purposefully thinking of other men, just so he doesn't have the satisfaction of being right, it is him. Always him. I can get cock anytime I want, I don't need to spend my time daydreaming about anonymous offerings. 

"I'd be dreaming of goldenrod." From the fine tips of hair on its head to the wispy strands on its toes. 

"What is that? The holy grail of cock?" His laugh runs from my neck, all the way to the tip of my rod. It's a tingly feeling, like when he crushes his body on my hand when he's sleeping on my arm and I try to get the blood flowing through my veins again. I love that feeling. 

"Aren't you the artist around these parts? It's a color, somewhere in the yellow gold family." He rests his chin on my shoulder. I don't even have to look to imagine the expression on his face, contemplating my answer. 

"Why would you be dreaming about that?" 

"Why do you always have to ask so many questions?" Avoid, avoid, avoid. 

"It's the only way I get any answers! So don't answer the question with another question and I won't have to ask any more." Push, push, push. He pinches my gut and I seize his hand, wrestling him for control of it. He puts up a good fight, landing me on my back, only now he's really stuck to the back of the couch, until I decide to move. Sucker. But he gets what he wanted, me facing him, so he doesn't have to talk to the back of my head and he can scrutinize my face when I respond, add it all to his little arsenal of vulnerabilities. He always gets what he wants. There must be some kind of voodoo in that golden rod. 

"It's relaxing, makes me think of a sunrise. Peaceful even." He closes his eyes and I can almost see behind his eyelids right to his brainwaves, trying to picture me thinking about a sunrise. He has no idea what I do when I'm awake at sunrise. He doesn't need to know, he knows enough. 

"I like you much better when you're being honest," he affirms to no one in particular. "You wouldn't be daydreaming about colors, though I could see you daydreaming about golden rods, especially if they're attached to certain golden oxen ." He's smirks, satisfied with himself, glad to have fashioned me back into a Brian he can deal with, the one always in pursuit of the ultimate fuck, the one who can't get enough of him on that journey. The one who would never get up at 5:30 in the morning and watch him sleep soundly without a care in the world. I will never be that person to him, and he's okay with that and that makes it so much easier. If he doesn't expect it of me, then I can't let him down. I can only fail myself and I'd much rather do that. It's better that way. 

"Didn't we already establish that oxen have no balls? What would be the point of that daydream?" I can feel his hand making slow, tentative gestures at my waistband and I'm no longer sure whether I'm still daydreaming or not. 

"Forget the animals Brian, close your eyes, focus on the rod." I do as told, rays of goldenrod whirling about behind my eyes, a smattering of sunlight drifting in through some window I can't see, but I know is there, and he's laying there lost in a dream world, but I feel a hand kneading it's way through my midsection, relaxing my breathing and it shakes my concentration. 

"Your rod or my rod?" I ask, because he would expect nothing less of me. 

I feel lips tracing my jawline and a thumb tucking the short strands of my hair behind my ear. "Did anyone ever tell you, you talk too much?" I laugh in spite of myself, and I can feel from the way his mouth gets wider on my skin, that he's laughing as well. I feel warm, bathed in a golden light that's not there, but that's burning me from the inside, and I'm sure he can feel it when he touches me, but he doesn't seem to care. He just continues kissing and massaging, climbing on top of me, calming me into submission and he doesn't have far to go. I'm already there. 

I lift his head from my chin with both hands, cradle it in my grip, open my eyes to his surprised stare and I just search his face. 

And the goldenrod triumphs again.


	12. Green

It's fucking cold out here and my lungs feel like they're on fire, every time I suck a breath in. I don't know how he does it, how his dick doesn't get frostbite in this weather, the mouth around it must be really warm. 

I cannot believe I'm standing here, in the freezing cold, watching him getting his dick sucked, waiting for five minutes of his time, what does that make three, four different times tonight? He's been avoiding me, I know he has. He's here, but he's not really here and every time I try to talk to him he just brushes me off. He looks like he can barely even hold himself up against the wall, his face is pale green and beaded in sweat, eyes wild and dilated. For whatever reason tonight has been the worst night in two weeks. I don't know what he's on, or what he's drank, I just can't believe he's not passed out on the bathroom floor with people stepping right over him. I should get him some water, if he even has anymore room to hold something down. Maybe that's why he keeps getting his dick sucked, emptying himself to make more space to fill it up with all that shit. 

I don't remember the last time I saw him this bad, I don't think I ever have. He gets bad, but not this bad. What the fuck did that kid do to him now? 

"Brian," I plead for the hundredth time, but he's in his own world, not even hearing me. He used to get like that all the time when we were younger, he'd come over, spend the night and in the middle of the night I'd open my eyes and he'd just be staring up at the ceiling, totally lost in space. Lucky for him he was always really smart, and didn't have to try too hard in school and interrupt his little dreamworld. He couldn't wait to be done with school, he just knew there was so much more out there for him. People think that I'm the one with my head lost in comic books, but he's always been a million miles away. 

I have an urge to go over there and grab the guy by his hair, and yank it off his scalp. 

"Enjoying the show Mikey?" I can barely make out what he's saying, his voice is so low and the words are all just sloshed together, his eyes half closed, half open, not even looking at me, though he's staring right at me. 

"Brian what the fuck are you doing? It's freezing out here, come back inside." I don't know if that's such a good idea, God only knows what they'd give him in there. I hesitate before I step towards him. I don't know what to do with myself, do I force him to come with me? Leave him here? Continue to stand here and watch this creep suck him like he hasn't eaten in days. He can't even be very good, he's so sloppy. 

"If you don't know what I'm doing, then I'm taking back your gay boy badge." Finally he pushes the guys head away from him, and fumbles with his zipper, like he's never seen one before. I reach my hand out to help. "What am I helpless? I can zip up my own cock. Run along." My face burns even in this cold. I didn't mean anything by it, he just looked like he needed help. 

"You look like shit. No sorry, you look like you ate a gallon of pea soup and it's coming out of your pores. Let me take you home." 

"I don't need your fucking help Mikey. I can find my own way home." 

"Not like this, you won't." 

"Watch me." He stumbles forward, trying to keep his balance, unsure of whether or not there's a ground beneath his feet. 

"What is wrong with you? You've been running away from me all night. I don't even know why you bothered to come here, if you were just going to spend the whole night in the backroom, you should have just gone to the baths." At least there, I wouldn't have to watch. "Will you talk to me?" 

Okay sometimes I talk too much at the wrong time and from the look he's giving me, this is one of those times. I don't mean to do it, I just can't stand to see him hurting like this. I know he cared for Justin, but this is ridiculous, he's not even functioning tonight and no matter how high he might get, Brian always manages to come back down. Something must have happened. 

"What do you want to talk about? The weather?" He leans into me, and I feel a bristle in my spine, trying to hold his weight up and stop us both from swaying. 

"What happened tonight? Did you see him, did he do something to you?" As far as I know he hasn't seen him since he stopped by to get some of his things, but it's not like Brian has said much about anything, he just shuts off, shuts us all out, but usually I can get him to open up at least a little to me. 

"Who?" He talks like he's an owl, like he's being cute. That's Brian, make a joke out of it. 

"Who do you think?" I don't hate Justin, I even understand where he was coming from, sorta. But I promised Brian years ago that I wouldn't let anyone hurt him, that he'd always be safe with me, and that's all Justin has been doing lately is hurting him. I never came out and said it to him, it was just understood between us, that he always had a place to go when things got too crazy for him and I'm hope he remembers that. 

"He's got a name Mikey, remember, Justin. You had to tell me what it was enough times." He laughs to himself, a bitter ugly laugh. "Fuck him." 

From the looks of him and though he'd never admit it, I'm sure that's what he'd like to be doing, and that kills me, not because it's Justin, but because... shit just because. How do you still want to fuck someone who just keeps hurting you that much? I don't understand. 

"So this is about him. You're falling all over yourself because..." Jesus, I mean Jesus, how stupid am I? 

"Because what?" He tries to straighten up with little success. 

"Because..." I can't say it, I won't say it. I can't even believe it took me this long to put two and two together, it's so obvious to anyone who wants to see it. "Because... you're in love with the little shit." 

The cold wind blasts my forehead, giving me one of those momentary headaches, like when you swallow an ice cube, and I see recognition in his eyes, looking more green than brown, they're so friggin close to my face, I can't help but notice, and I want to push him off me, leave him on the ground and just walk away. 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" 

"I'm talking about you, about you and him. I'm not stupid, it's more than just you not minding him, or caring about him." I mean I guess I knew that he loved him, he had to, he wouldn't put up with all that he has, from his crazy dad, to taking him in, going to his prom, all that stuff, if he didn't. But I guess I just never realized, don't want to... It's so cold out here, my hands are shaking. 

"Do you think my whole world revolves around some little twat?" He explodes, yelling so loud people are actually staring at him. Not that he gives a shit what some tricks in an alley think about him. But he doesn't even realize how loud he is, how they all know now, they know. I know. He doesn't even realize that it's not a denial. Whatever he's on, it's some pretty powerful stuff. He pushes off of me, gets his bearings and gathers himself, like he's just going to walk away and leave me here, no further explanations necessary. 

"Look at what you're doing to yourself. No one is worth this, Brian, no matter how much you love them." The word doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times I say it. 

"You know, at least he knew when to keep his mouth shut." 

That stings, no matter what we've always been able to be honest with each other. We don't tell each other what we want to hear, we tell the truth, even when it's painful, not to hurt one another, never to hurt each other. And for some reason that hurt. 

"Brian," I try to stop him, I'm too scared to let him drive himself home like this, maybe he'd manage to swerve his way, but who knows what he'd do once he got there. "Maybe you don't want to look at either of us right now, but believe it or not we both love you and neither of us wants to see you get yourself killed. Give me your keys let me drive you home." 

"I wish everyone would stop fucking loving me! You, him, everyone." 

What the hell happened? What is going on here? "Brian, where are you going? I'm not letting you go." He continues to half walk, half stumble down the alley, me trailing behind him. "Brian!" 

He turns quickly, too quickly, and almost loses his footing. "I'm fine Mikey, go back to Ben, go inside, it's cold out here. I'll get myself home and you can sleep tight knowing your good deed was done for the day." 

He always does this to me, gets me so upset and then charms his way out of it with an innocent smile, all big green eyes and white teeth. The only person it doesn't work on is my mother, hasn't since we were kids and he would try to charm his way into getting us both out of trouble. But I guess it must have worked a little, she always let him spend the night, no matter what we did, told me it was because of the smile, she was just glad to see it on his face, instead of his usual frown, and she wanted to keep it there. 

"What kind of good deed would it be, if you're the one driving yourself home?" I smile back. 

"That wasn't the good deed I was talking about." 

"The parking lot is in the other direction Brian." I call out to him. 

"I'm parked by the diner." He turns and walks slower this time, more sure of himself, but still unsteady. 

I don't follow, my feet are rooted to the ground. Brian never does anything without a plan, even something as simple as parking. He loves to pull up to Babylon and announce his presence, so all his little minions can flock together and spread the word. There's only one reason he'd be parked by the diner. I guess I won't have to worry about him getting home in one piece after all. 

I jump at the feel of a hand on my shoulder. "Ben, Jesus, you scared me." 

"Sorry. I've been looking all over for you." 

"I was just making sure Brian got home alright." I sigh, rub my temple and watch him walk in the distance, walk away. From me. Towards the diner. 

"Maybe we should get you home Michael. You look a little... green." 

Don't I know it.


	13. Purple

They should hand out some kind of medal for dealing with Brian Kinney, a Purple Heart for being brave enough to try, in the face of one heavily drugged man leaning all his weight against you as you try to steer a Jeep you've never driven through black ice and keep his hand out of your pants at the same time. 

I'd accept it and then choke him with it, if I could get him off of me long enough to open this door that's hard enough to open freehand, much less with an intoxicated person using you as his personal brick wall. 

I should have left him standing there and I would have if I thought, for one second, that his legs weren't about to give out. I'm such a fool to actually have thought my plan to avoid him was going to last forever, or at least until I was ready to see him again. Brian only eats in the diner at breakfast or at dinner, so the mid-shift in between during the week was perfect for my first week back. And there was no way he was going to spend a Saturday night hanging around there when he could be out fucking. I never accounted for the fact that he occasionally leaves his car parked by the diner, rather than drive the block up to Babylon, because he usually only did that when he would come in and wait for my shift to be over, so we could go together. He certainly hadn't been there in the time that I was, so why would I think he'd be parked all the way down by me? I just know I couldn't let him drive himself home in the condition he's in. Where the hell is Mikey? He's supposed to be the designated look out for him. 

I give the cold metal one last shrug and manage to tumble us both inside without breaking any bones. It occurs to me that I'm exhausted, between heaving plates around all night and now heaving him around, my entire upper body is aching. I would kill to use the power massager on the showerhead right now. 

"God Brian, could you help me out a little here? You're not exactly light." I'm trying to get him into an upright position instead of hunched over and grabbing the ends of my jacket, before we fall over, but his six inches on me is making my attempt a little more spastic than helpful, and I don't know how to proceed. I've never had to carry Brian home before. I've never seen him like this before, period. 

He uses my body as a steadying force and makes a slow climb to a standing position, eyeing the kitchen counter for leverage, I help him walk towards it. And the fucker grabs the closest bottle of alcohol he can reach, uncaps it and swigs. I can't help it, I want to drown him in it for that move, instead I just snatch it out of his hands. 

"If you OD on me, I'm not giving you mouth to mouth." I don't care how angry he gets, I'm not going to stand here and watch him choke on his own tongue after he has a seizure or pass out from alcohol poisoning. 

"Why does everyone always want to ruin my fun?" He doesn't even sound like himself, he sounds like he's doing an imitation of himself, and not a very good one at that. 

"You can have all the fun you want, just do me a favor, next time find someone else to drag you home when you're done, because this is not my idea of fun." I back away, though I know I'm not going anywhere, but he lunges for my jacket to keep me here, only he misses and winds up with a fistful of nothing. "What did you take?" 

"Don't know, don't care. But it's some good shit." 

"This isn't like you. Didn't you tell me never to do anything by myself, to always have a friend around? Where the hell was Mikey? Are you listening to me Brian?" His eyes are zoning in and out, trying to find something to focus on and it freaks me out, I want to smack him on the head, partly to get him to focus, partly for being so stupid. If he drops dead on me, I will never forgive him. He won't drop dead, he won't. Shutup Justin! 

He licks his dry lips with what seems like all the effort he can muster. "Mikey had more important things to do, like Ben." He giggles to himself, and his voice sounds so strained, cracking in my ear, that it almost sounds pained. I guess that's why he's so out of it, whenever Michael doesn't have time for him, he gets upset. He needs Mikey in a way he never needed me. That didn't always bother me. 

"Maybe I should call him. I'm sure he'd come over if he knew you needed him." I hear myself speak, not even sure of what I've said. 

"Leave him alone, he's busy." He manages to get himself into a stool and my fingers get some feeling back in them. I didn't realize how tightly I'd been gripping the bottle. "Get me a glass." 

"Fuck no!" He is unbelievable, un-fucking-believable! "Don't think for one minute that I'm going to sit here and watch you drink yourself into a coma. I'll put you in one myself, before I do that," I threaten to deaf ears. He's running heavy fingers over his forehead, and staring at the counter top, to get it to stop moving around in his mind, I'm sure. 

"But we have to do a toast."

He sounds so distant, I'm not even sure he's here. He can barely keep his eyes open, much less focused and he blinks rapidly. Is he fucking crying, or at least trying not to? "Toast what? The fact that you're still semi-upright?" 

He gurgles a small laugh, reaching out for the bottle near me. Luckily his reaction time is severely dulled, and I manage to pull it away without any effort, his arm just lands there and stays. "We have to toast my mother and all her little purple-haired friends from the Ladies Auxiliary of whatever the fuck they're from. They sang like birds today. And Claire, can't forget Claire, lucky bitch got to stay home because one of her brats has the chicken pox." He laughs a shrill, disgusting sound. "And of course, the guest of honor, Jack, one year cold in the ground today. What a wonderful, loving husband and father, that's what they said." He sits straight up, squaring his shoulders in mock respect, and salutes the air with his nonexistent glass. 

I squirm, out of guilt, out of stupidity and selfishness. I had totally forgotten that it was around this time his father died last year, not that I had any reason to remember. He didn't really tell me much about it, or about him, I sort of had to figure it all out myself, not like it was that hard from the bits and pieces I did manage to scrape out of people. I would have gone to the funeral if I could have gotten out of school, but it's not like he would have even noticed I was there, or cared, he had Michael, and that was enough, and now where the hell is Michael when he needs him the most? It'd be better if he were here, he was the one who was around when Jack was alive, and lived through it, with him, I'm sure I'm not the one he wants to deal with this. 

"Well aren't you going to join my toast?" I want to shake him or hug him, I don't know. I want to not feel like such an ass for almost hoping he was this upset over me, that I could deal with. 

I sigh and search for something to say to make this okay, but nothing sounds right, and I look up at him, look at the way he's waiting for me to get this right, and I'm fearless and I don't care what I say anymore, or how it sounds, I have nothing to lose. "You must have really loved him, or hated him, or maybe both." 

"I don't give a fuck about him," he shrugs. 

"Yeah." I say it quietly, looking at his frame, tense and oblivious. I want to cry, but I don't. I want to shove this bottle up Jack Kinney's ass, raw, but I can't and I wouldn't even if he were here, because I would never stoop down to his level, beating on defenseless people and making them bleed, and because he's his father and no matter what he's done, Brian would never want him hurt. "Did you ever hit him back?" Maybe whatever Brian is on, is airborne, that's the only explanation for my mouth. 

"He wasn't worth the effort," he drawls, leaning back into the stool, and closing his eyes. 

I guess I never thought of Brian as being powerless, he's always so in control of everything, of everyone, mostly himself. But what kind of power could a 12 year old getting beaten by his alcoholic father really have? The thought makes me sick to my stomach, I don't want to picture it, picture him, like that. I never want to think of him that way. Every cell in my body just wants to protect him, from Jack, from that ice queen bitch he calls a mother, from himself, make this all go away. "Lift your arms up." 

"What?" He spits the word out. 

"Just fucking lift them." I must have a death wish, but he listens to me and lifts them as far as he can get them over his head, without tipping over. I don't know if this is such a good idea, after all, but I don't think there's any turning back. I fist the ends of his shirt and lift it over his head, with some effort, and I can feel the muscles in his back flinch at my touch, I see the veins in his arm throb to a deep purple, and I'm hoping he's dizzy enough to not notice my hands are shaking and my breathing is shallow, at best. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" 

I canvass his back with my hand, searching for something that I know is there, but that I can't see, that he wouldn't let me, even if the blood was soaking through his shirt and staining my hands. "I'm looking Brian, and I don't see anything. No bruises, no marks, nothing. Your father's pretty good at not leaving a trace, isn't he?" Please God, if you ever cared about me, you'll let me live long enough to do this. 

"He's fucking dead Justin, or hadn't you noticed?" I feel him moving more towards the counter, away from my touch, and I swallow the hard painful lump in my throat. 

"I wasn't sure you had noticed." He stops, just stops moving, breathing, and I think maybe I might do the same... "You know what? He doesn't have to be here to beat you Brian, because he's already won. You let him win, every fucking time." I feel lightheaded, like I could just lift myself out of my sneakers and float. 

"Justin..." His voice echoes in my daze. "Justin, I think I'm gonna be sick." He lurches forward, almost falling out of the stool, and I can't help it I'm grateful the bile in his throat is preventing him from lashing out at me. I grab him by the waistband, trying to prevent him from falling face first into the floor. It's the exact wrong move, because his head falls just beneath my stomach instead, and if this were any other moment, this was would have turned me on but the force of the pants in my hand straining against his stomach, must be the last straw. The next thing I know I am soaked in his puke, and I can't even push him off me, I can only stand bent over him and let him finish. I almost laugh, I don't know why I find this funny, I just know laughing would be better than crying. 

"And here I thought you had all sorts of willpower." I've never actually seen him toss his cookies, no matter how high he is, whatever it is he took it's a weird mix of orange and purple. Jesus I hope that's not blood, but I don't think blood is chunky. Ugh, whatever it is, it's disgusting! He stops for a minute bending down on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Well fuck it, I can't just leave him there. I take my jacket off and toss it in no particular direction. "Do you feel like you're gonna go again?" He barely nods his head, fascinated by my puke soaked jeans, and I try to ignore the wet feeling on my skin. "Well, you're not doing it on me, c'mon." 

I give him my hand, try to grab one arm with both of mine and lift him off the floor. They say in times of panic you gain super human strength, and boy are they right. He sort of falls up, slathering himself in his own breakfast, on the way there. I don't even know how we get to the bathroom, but it seems to take forever, he thankfully manages to hold it in, until I can position him over the toilet. I just stand and watch for a minute, if he had hair, I'd hold it back for him, but as it is I'm useless and he won't be leaving the floor anytime soon. I take the opportunity to kick my shoes off and rid myself of my brand new jeans, I can't stand here wearing his little gift to me. Thank god I still have clothes left here. I never thought I'd be so grateful to watch someone retching, the more he does it, the more it's coming out of him, leaving his system, the less likely he is to fall away from me. I can handle a little mess, I can't handle picking his dead body up off the floor. 

I crouch down next to him, and rub his head, brush his hair from his forehead, he's breaking a sweat all over his face and tiny beads on his back and panting over the bowl, and I think as ridiculous as it seems, that he's never looked younger to me and that I'm glad I'm here. How sick is that? He looks up at me, spent from all his exertion, and he doesn't even try to say anything stupid or sarcastic, he doesn't say anything at all. He's leaving it up to me to figure out what to do with him. 

"To the showers, soldier." Maybe I wouldn't choke him with my Purple Heart after all, maybe I'd pin it on him. 

I step in the shower and turn it on, feeling like an idiot when the water plasters my t-shirt and underwear to my body. What am I shy about being naked in front of him? Fuck it. They land somewhere in the corner of the shower and I step out to retrieve him from the floor. He doesn't even put up a fight, makes his body as light as possible, helps me help him up, and just lets me lead him there, under the water, which feels unbelievably good pounding on my head. I watch it roll off his face, and I want to turn away, because I shouldn't be watching this, but I'm riveted to his eyes, the water just washes away the tears as if they never existed. I look at his body, cascaded in water, and wash it clean, wash away dirt that doesn't exist in crevices so small and deep, I never noticed them before, and look at how small he seems, no matter how he towers over me. "You want to brush your teeth?" He nods accepting silence, again. I leave him standing there, secure that he won't fall over and go to retrieve a toothbrush and some toothpaste. 

Bitter aftertaste in your mouth is the most rancid taste, like twice as bad as that purple gummy shit they put in your mouth at the dentist, when they're trying to take an impression. That stuff is just slimy and disgusting, it makes me gag, and I have a pretty high gag factor. I snicker to myself, ashamed to be thinking about such trivial stupid things, but I can't think about all of this, overthink all of this, it gets me in trouble. I simply give him what he needs and wait outside, drying myself off, picking my pants off the floor and fold them over my sneakers. I have no idea how to get vomit out of clothes. I'm not sure I want to know. 

I hear the shower turn off and watch him exit, slowly and not very steadily. My impulse is to run and grab him, but I ignore it, and let him take care of himself, he's not helpless and if he needs me, he'll ask. 

"Thanks." His back is facing me, and I try to pretend not to hear him because I'm pretty sure that's what he wants, to pretend this all didn't happen. But it did, and we both know it, and that's all that counts. And I feel oddly powerful and helpless all at once. "Could you help me to the bed?" 

I know this is killing him, fucking killing him, having to rely on me for anything, having to ask me for anything, killing him for me to see him like this. Jack Kinney may have never laid a hand on me, but I feel like he split my head open all over again, right now. 

We pad with careful steps to the bedroom and he climbs in, naked and semi-wet, he must be freezing, but his body feels warm and soft. He doesn't reject the blanket I put over him, though, he just huddles under it. 

I sit next to him for a while, watch him fall into sleep, poke his ribs gently to make sure he's still reacting to stimuli. 

"What did he do to you?" I whisper it, not wanting him to hear, but having to ask, giving his hair one last brush from his forehead, and I walk around the bed and climb into my side, exhaustion overtaking me, like I'm coming off some kind of adrenaline high. 

I just drift into a purple haze of my own hiding behind my eyes and wrapping me in warmth. 

I don't deserve any medals. I've already won.


	14. Yellow Son

I can't remember the last time I slept in this late, well actually I can. It was when I came home from the hospital that night and closed my eyes, I was asleep in seconds. I guess it was relief or maybe release that just overwhelmed me, and I slept for almost twelve hours straight. The same bright yellow rays streamed through the same window and woke me up slowly, like tiny streaks of torture lining my eyelids, forcing them open. It's amazing how bright sunshine can be, even when your eyes are closed. I think that was the first time I'd pulled a blanket over my head since college, trying to remain in that relaxed, unconscious state. 

Considering the fact that I ingested enough varying poisons of unidentifiable origins to kill a small herd of animals, I feel remarkably numb and coherent. I must have gotten most of it out of my system, last night. Maybe that's the key to not having a hangover the next morning, tossing it all out before it has a chance to settle into your bloodstream. I don't usually do that, no matter what or how much I've taken. It was just this distinct feeling, that if I didn't do it at that moment, I was going to choke. It felt like someone had stuck a fist down my esophagus and physically ripped my insides out and left them to rest at the back of my throat. I just desperately needed air. 

He's starting to get restless, I'll let him wake up on his own. He's much easier to deal with, that way, instead of our usual push and shove. The sun never bothers him, he could sleep in it all day, head buried in the pillow, not even noticing how the yellow beams cross his body and cast shadows. I'm surprised his skin can even pick up sunrays, you would think it would just blend right in. I wonder if he even realizes where he is? Who he's with, or rather, who he's not with? That's probably why he looks like so relaxed, more than he has in weeks, he probably thinks he's somewhere else. 

I kind of wish he was because I don't want to do this. I don't want to wake up and see him next to me and think it's just another morning, like the morning before and the morning we'll have tomorrow. I especially don't want to hear him pry me with a thousand questions and wind up with a thousand disappointed faces when he doesn't get the answer he wants, and I really don't want to think about the fact that he's more than likely going to regret this, regret me and wake up feeling guilty for somehow betraying his ... whatever he is. Well fuck him, fuck both of them, I'm the one who should be angry. And I really don't want to take that out on him right now, because I don't have the energy. 

I feel the rustle of the sheets underneath me, and feet pulling away from where I sit at the end of the bed, and I don't look back, because I feel that same choking sensation and it's all I can do to keep the flow of air from suffocating me, so I stab my cigarette butt out, just punch it into the ashtray until it's nothing but shreds, but it doesn't help, the smoke still burns my lungs, and it physically hurts to just swallow the oxygen around me. I want to spit it out, just spit out all the shit I've been holding down. I want him to know what it feels like to be totally fucking helpless, trying to hold onto some shred of dignity, while you keep getting kicked in the gut over and over again, and all you can do is roll yourself into a ball and shut everything out, to try and protect yourself. Then I want him to know what it feels like when you can't help yourself, and it all comes spewing out of you, because you're going to explode if it doesn't. And I want him to know what it feels like to just lay there and have to wait for someone to help you get back up, the person you most want to do it and the person it stabs you the most to have do it. 

But he does know, doesn't he? 

I chance a casual look in his direction, and he meets my gaze, and I wait for the inevitable onslaught. His face is so set, so determined, so brilliantly fucking bathed in yellow sun, but he doesn't blink his eyes, not once. He just stares, and I have to look away, the glare from the light burning my eyes. 

Silence is unbearably loud when you're waiting for a sound. I can hear every rattle of the windows, and creak of the pipes and they're deafening, like listening to a faucet drip water, and no matter how many times you fix it, it just keeps leaking that slow drip drip sound until it drives you to madness. I hear a sharp intake of breath, but no exhale, and I realize, almost too late, that it's my own, I'm waiting for, and I can't take it anymore. 

"What are you doing here?" I hold my stomach with one hand, my head with the other, trying to calm the whirring motions both are making. 

"You don't remember anything." It's not even a question, it's a statement of fact. 

"Should I?" He moves around, out of the bed, appearing in front of me, dick bobbing like it's just been sprung from a few years in solitary confinement. 

"You were pretty out of it. I didn't expect you to remember much." 

"Since we're both naked, I assume you took advantage of that fact." 

He rolls his eyes and just sits right next to me cupping his package like he just remembered to be shy about it. He doesn't look at me, he doesn't need to. "You kind of scared me last night." 

Good you should have been scared, last night, the first night I met you. You should just cower in fear and run in the other direction. 

"Nothing I couldn't handle though." There it is, his false bravado, only it doesn't feel as false as I'd like it to, it feels real. 

I pull away from him, and slide onto my back, the sheets warm to my touch, heated from the pool of sun they soak in. I prefer this position, I can prepare myself this way. I can see his every movement before he even takes it. "So what are you still doing here?" I watch his shoulders sag slightly, and I know it won't be long before he goes. I've just guaranteed that. 

"Was I supposed to just leave you alone?" 

Yes. Leave me laying here, the first morning, the next morning, every other fucking morning after that, especially this morning. "Don't you have some strings you need to go pluck?" I see his back rise and fall quickly and I know he's going to say something stupid. No wait, that's me, and I've already done it. Big shock. 

"I'm sorry," he hesitates and lifts himself up in one swift motion, body erect and standing tall, "about your dad." He adds that quickly, retrieving underwear from his drawer and slipping them on, refusing to turn around and look at me. 

I don't want to hear that, I don't ever want to hear him pity me. "Sorry, for what? He was a prick, he's dead, life goes on." 

He just twists his head back and I'm caught and he knows it and he doesn't say a word, he just goes back to fitting himself into his underwear. "I'm just sorry that's all." 

There's something changed in him, some way I've pushed him into being. Justin doesn't just clam up, he pushes things and aggravates me and shows me how immature he is everytime he doesn't get his way, well at least he did until the past few weeks. But this is a different silence, he's not scared to speak, he's too confident to be scared. He's just quiet like too many words would cost him too much, and he's not prepared to pay. Cost me too much. And I suddenly want to barter away whatever pride I have left and thank him, but I don't, and he doesn't expect me to and for the first time this morning, I feel like I can breathe. 

"Well now that I know you're not dying, I can go. I'll take some more of my stuff, maybe I'll stop by later this week and get the rest of it." He's back to rambling, good, that's good. 

"I don't care how long it stays there." 

"I know, it's just that now that I have a more permanent situation, I don't need to store it here." 

It feels strange to talk like we've having a normal conversation, like the thousands we've had that were forgotten as quickly as they'd come. I don't even remember the last time we did that. "I thought your room at your mother's was small?" 

He stops rifling through drawers long enough to smile in my direction. "Actually I got a place of my own." 

A studio on Liberty and St. Charles, nice view and you won't be tripping over yourself when you walk from the bed to the kitchen, even if it's about six feet away, max. And at least you have your own bathroom, unlike the floor below. "Really? How are you going to swing that?" 

He falters, for my protection or his own, I'm not sure. "My dad is going to supplement my income." 

I just tease him with a hint of a smile. "So he's finally come around and stopped being a deadbeat." 

He clenches his teeth, his smile fading. "He's trying. He still won't pay my tuition, or see me." 

Why does he let that bastard disappoint him, every single time? "Well you don't have to worry about your tuition. I said I'd pay it and I meant it." 

"I don't want you to do that." I love when he gets stubborn. "I'll find some way to pay my own tuition next year and pay back what I owe you." 

"I fully expect you to, you can't rescind a legally binding contract, but the payment doesn't have to start until you graduate and I don't have to stop paying until your four years are up, we've already been over this. And you can take the computer with you, while you're at it. I have no use for it." He gets a weird look on his face, and just laughs loudly, like he hasn't laughed in ages. I don't know what's funny, but I find myself laughing at him, and I know I didn't give him anything last night that he'd be coming down off of, well unless you count the regurgitated version of it, all over his pants. "What's so funny?" 

"Do you know what we sound like?" Like two people having a conversation? Or are we not even capable of that anymore? I have absolutely no idea. "Like some old married couple splitting up their assets in a divorce." He laughs so hard and so absurdly, he has to take a seat and I want to slap him on the ass for that crack, but I don't, because he looks so rested, happy even, engulfed in the bright yellow sun, instead I just kick him gently as a warning. 

"What assets are you splitting? You're taking me for all I'm worth here." 

"It's a good thing we don't have kids, how would I ever support them," he jokes, grabbing my foot so quickly I don't even know where his hand comes from. 

"You could always get their suddenly benevolent grandfather to help." I try to yank my foot back, but he just holds tighter, climbing on top of it and sitting, staking his claim and I laugh, I mean I really laugh and it just makes him laugh harder, and we both laugh until our throats are hoarse, and he falls prone, right next to my chest, and I think I like this feeling so much more than trying to choke back bile. "It's good, you know? All of this... for you, I mean. Your father and all that stuff." I mention awkwardly, my throat still aching. I reach over to grab a cigarette, stopped by his hand grasping my head and facing it towards him, and he's on me like he's never left, climbing all over my chest. 

We never get this wrong, and I don't want to get it wrong now, so I'll let him take the lead, that way if we crash and burn, he'll be the one driving, but I don't want this to ever be wrong and I won't risk it, I pull his mouth off my neck and force him to look at me, and he does and silences whatever stupid thing was about to come out of my mouth, with his own, absorbing it like it never existed by itself, like it can't exist now if it's not attached to him. He just sucks and breathes, sucks and breathes, shoving his tongue in as far as it can go and I find a place for it, on the roof of my mouth, licking the underside with my own tongue, pinning him to me, and I'm not even sure you can call what we're doing kissing anymore, I just know I don't want him to stop, never want him to stop, and from the way he's not even struggling, just plunging deeper, I know he doesn't want that either. 

I feel fingertips grasping my skin, my hair, his arms just cradling my head, holding on for position, holding on to be steady, holding on to be sure, I'm not going anywhere and I'm not, never will. His fingers work their way down to my collarbone, his mouth following, and I feel empty, want it to be filled with something, with him. He nips angrily at the thin layer of skin on the nape of my neck wanting to leave his mark, but soothes it with his tongue in apology, and I don't care if he bites so hard he draws blood, at this point, I just don't want him to stop. 

He looks up at me, looks for me to tell him whether this is right or wrong and I won't give him that answer, he needs to make his choice. He looks at the bowl of condoms and back at me and reaches over for one and I know before he even opens it, that it's not for me, that he needs to do this and that just makes me harder, because I know he's not going to be pleasant about this. He's angry, he's happy, he's sad and tired and he's nineteen and he's hard and he can't talk to me any other way right now, because I won't let him, but I'll let him say whatever he needs to, warm sheets baking my face, but he'll cover me from the sun on my back, lay across me and absorb it all. I feel the first thrust, it's hard and it's quick, but it's not messy or unsure, not like the first time or the few times we've done it since then, it's certain, and it sends a pulse to the tip of my cock. He uses my shoulder as leverage gripping it with hand and I can feel his eyes concentrated on some imaginary bullseye on the back of my neck and he just keeps pounding steadily, totally focused and totally sure of himself. 

His dick fills me up and his other hand works to empty me, stroking firmly, his tongue bathing the space between my shoulders, and I realize I'm doing absolutely nothing but laying here and letting him do all the work, and seems to have made all the difference because I haven't been this turned on in ages and he's never been better. I can't even lift my head up, too heavy with prickly sensation. He just keeps hitting his target over and over and the vein in my cock responds in his hand, throbbing and quickening, tells him to keep going, keep pushing, keep hammering it into me. I hear every word, I feel every fucking thing Justin. And all you hear is me breathing, in scattered breaths, choking on a moan, I can't even make that intelligible. But you understand and I feel you open up, just unfurl yourself, feel you stiffen and squeeze, dig your hand into my shoulder and I grip you, because I don't want you to ever leave and it only makes it worse, makes you explode and you spill out and you don't even realize how hard you're fist is grasping me, or maybe you do, but the feeling overwhelms me and I burst. I just rip right through your hand and hold you tightly inside me, quivering or maybe it's me and you collapse on my back, and we both just lay there in the belly of the sun, listening to each other's breathing. 

And I realize, I've been listening for this silence all along.


	15. Silver Bells

The first song I ever learned how to play was Silver Bells on the piano. My mother had an old Perry Como Christmas album, she was playing one summer in the middPurplePurplele of 90 degree heat, she told me to imagine it was Christmas instead of complaining about the weather, though we celebrate Hanukkah in my house, but I guess she missed the traditions of her upbringing in a big robust Italian family. I think my dead grandmother must still be praying for her mortal soul for marrying outside the faith, and in a courthouse no less. I can't imagine that she has enough prayers to pray for her gay mutt of a grandson who can't even pick the right faith, much less be the right "way". Not that I care, really, she's been dead longer than I can remember her ever having been alive. Was it any wonder that I chose the faith of the man I was named after? The one who was just grateful enough to have survived his life and gone on to father three beautiful children, that he didn't care if one of them wanted to impulsively marry some girl he'd only met two months before, and who was gasp Catholic? Just as long as he was happy, that's all that mattered. 

I don't remember when my mother converted, it must have been when I was fairly young, but I do remember her insisting on secular music around the holidays. I think she converted mostly to please my father, and couldn't escape the Catholic guilt, no matter how many menorahs she lit. She had lots of albums, I got the gift of playing violin from my grandfather, but the gift of loving music from my mother. I remember that day, it was so hot it seemed like every inch of my skin was sweating, I was 4, maybe 5 at most and she put the record on, and I just knew the notes. My fingers just swept across the piano keys and Silver Bells floated throughout the house. Until that point, I don't think I'd shown any interest in music, but the sounds captivated me, I'd made them, and without any help from anyone else. My mother was amazed, but when she tried to teach me Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I failed miserably. I just couldn't seem to connect with the piano, fingers sliding all around, wet from the humidity and out of control. It frustrated me, and I threw a tantrum and vowed to never look at the piano again. But I heard Silver Bells in my head every night for weeks after that, and I pounded on that piano day after day, trying to recapture what I had done so easily and without thought, the first time. 

My father was the one who finally got the idea to put the violin in my hand, and as soon as I held the bow, the same notes that floated out of me so easily that hot muggy day, floated out of me again, and my mind was finally at ease. I played back every song they turned on, not as well as I can now, but I could hear the notes, without even knowing what they were and my arm and fingers worked in conjunction to release them from me. My mother said I'd just started off with the wrong instrument, that the music was always there, it just needed the right outlet. Truthfully, Silver Bells on a violin sounds a little strange, but I can make it beautiful, I can make any song beautiful, and it's still one of my favorite pieces to play. 

She was right, she's always right. 

She says I give my heart away too freely, that love is like music to me, it just fills me up and I'm so desperate for a way to release it, that I'll give it to anyone, even when I know they're not right for me. But how would I have ever known that the violin was what I was meant to play, if I hadn't tried and nearly killed the art of piano playing to start? She says I'm too stubborn to see her point. 

Only tonight, I do, and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. I don't even want to pick my violin up, I meant it when I said he was what inspired me to play, and tonight all he's inspiring in me is a total lack of interest in anything I enjoy. When I play, I escape into some world where notes just sift through the air, come through me, I'm just the vessel that carries them out of my head. No one else can hear inside there, and the only way to make them hear me is to play. And that's what I feel when I look at him, he can't feel what's bursting in me, and I can't contain it anymore, I just have to show him, I have no control over what I'm feeling. 

I thought I was doing the right thing tonight, how could I have been so wrong without even trying? He got a new place, a small place near campus, but not too far from where he works and I thought it would be nice to surprise him, give him a housewarming visit. I waited for his shift to be over, to walk him home. I should have known from the look on his face when I showed up at the diner that, at the very least, he wasn't expecting me, at the very worst, it was an unpleasant surprise, but we hadn't had time for each other all week, with my practicing for the Heifitz competition and him trying to settle into his new apartment, and the last time we made plans he flaked at the last minute, said there was something he had to take care of, and I didn't hear from him again until I caught up with him at school. 

I don't think I'll soon forget the look on his face when he saw me, embarrassment. 

Once we were out of there though, he seemed okay, like his normal self. He even let me make a fool of myself, walking backwards and almost breaking my neck several times playing him a sonata. There was moonlight, there was music, and the two of us. It was perfection. If there had been snow, I would have played him Silver Bells, but the weather has finally started to break and behave like it's supposed to, spring just a step away. 

His apartment is still pretty bare, he had to borrow plates, towels and sheets from his mother, he says he'll get some one of these days. I think it's a pretty cool place, more than I can afford that's for sure. I'm a little surprised he's taking money from his father, I don't know much about him, he doesn't say much one way or the other, but it doesn't seem like a good situation, but he says a man knows when to ask for help, and I guess that makes some sense. Why put pride in the way of survival? 

My mother would knock me on the ass with her wooden spoon if she heard me say that. Pride is important to her, she taught me to be proud of myself, and my gift. I think that's why I disappoint her all the time, when I come crying about my heart getting broken, she wants me to have just as much pride in that arena, as I do in the rest of my life. "Be more discerning", that's what she always says. But I don't think she understands that love is as much an instrument to me as my violin. I can't really give my time, or my energy, or even my heart to a relationship, but I can give my love, my heart is my violin and that takes up all my time and energy. I just need another outlet and for me that's love. Some would say it's my ego, I suppose, that I need to have someone around to feed off of, to be inspired by, but I don't really know any other way. So when they disappoint me, as they usually do and I can't be inspired by them anymore, I need to find someone else to love, and I hope every single time that this will be the one that will stay and return that feeling to me, instead of just taking it. 

I guess I thought maybe that was him. He did leave that beautiful portrait of a man for me. I didn't imagine that did I? It would have been so easy for him to stay, but he took the hard route, and I respect that, only sometimes it doesn't come out that way I suppose. I don't even know how we started arguing, one minute we were talking about the shitty contents of his refrigerator and joking about both of us starving, and I guess I must have said something about leaving the lap of luxury to live with the rest of us paupers. Okay I don't guess, I did say that and he took such offense, but then he did something strange, he stopped being Justin, he just apologized mutely and I called him on it. I'm not Brian don't fucking hide from me, every vein in my body was screaming I AM NOT BRIAN, and all I could think was that I wish someone had written a song that I could play him, to make him hear me, but there isn't and all I really had was my voice and sometimes that gets a little carried away, because I'm not half as articulate when I speak, as I am when I'm playing. 

I should have probably walked away, the minute he jumped to his defense, but I'm not easily dissuaded. I don't care what things he's done for him that I don't know about or ways that he is, that only Justin has seen, isn't that what he said? None of that matters to me. If he was such a prize then nothing I could have said or done would have made Justin leave, he left because he wanted to, not because of me. I said as much to him and I may as well have punched him right between the eyes from the look he gave me, like it was the first time he'd realized it since the night of the party. 

I didn't want to stay and he didn't want me to stay, I think we were both just a little worn out and unsure how to proceed, we'll figure it out. "It was for the best." I can hear my mother's voice already. 

Because she's right, she's always right. 

It never really occurred to me what I saying to him, I'm just so frustrated with the whole thing, it's too distracting and I don't need this kind of distraction right now, not when I'm on the brink of achieving everything I've worked for since the minute my father put a violin in my hand. But I can no more shutup the love in me, than I can the music. Now I'm left wondering yet again, why I always have to pick the one instrument that will never come naturally to me. 

That's the whole problem isn't it? He didn't leave because of me, now he knows it, and I know it and now when he looks at me, he doesn't hear Silver Bells, he hears my fat, sweaty 4 year old fingers, knocking against piano keys and mutilating the simplistic beauty of those notes. I'm just more clatter in his busy little brain. 

I just confuse the situation more, I don't help it, I didn't cause it, and I can't fix it. 

What did my mother used to say, from that movie? Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. 

I can hear Perry singing, somewhere in the back of my head "and above all this bustle, you'll hear, silver bells, silver bells". I feel my fingers sweeping the air, the notes drifting in peace, out of my mind. 

And all I hear are silver bells.


	16. Pink

"See anything interesting?" He mumbles, close enough to feel like it could be coming out of my own mouth. 

"Fuck! Brian! You scared the living shit out of me." 

"Well if you didn't have your head buried so far back in the closet, maybe you would have heard me come in. Whatever could you be looking for in there, I wonder?" He smirks and gives me his best Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe impression. 

"Weren't you supposed to be out dropping the cake off at Melanie and Lindsay's place?" I back away from the closet, slowly, gingerly sliding the door closed as if it were made out of tissue paper and smile back. 

"Already done. Did you find what you were looking for?" He blocks my escape, stepping right in front of me. 

"I was just trying to find a shirt for tonight." He just cocks an eyebrow, waiting for a confession, he won't be getting. "What? I noticed you shoved my sheets way back in the corner, again" I shake my head in disapproval, when in doubt, deflect. "Why are you looking at me like that?" 

"You can search the closet all you want, it's not in there. It's already at the munchers. Though I must say I'm very disappointed, have I taught you nothing about patience?" I want to stomp on his foot and wipe that grin off his face. 

"Boatloads." 

He slips both his hands down the back of my pants and I want to stay annoyed at him for catching me, but he makes it impossible. "Then you should know better than anyone that good things come to those who wait." 

I kiss him, because I can, because his grinning is unbearably and effortlessly adorable and I can't stand when his mouth is so close to mine, all pink and swollen, and I'm not touching him. I pull away before he can make the entrance he wants to, though. "I wouldn't know... 'cause I'm still waiting." Aaah, that pinch and slap is gonna leave a mark. 

"Why do I put up with you again?" I open my mouth to speak. "Don't say it." 

I say it all the time, in a million different ways, like the one I'm using now, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing his entire face while he does everything in his power to not smile, and that just makes me smile more. And I'll keep saying it, until he actually believes it without having to be convinced that he deserves it or that it's not all a silly waste of time, and that day may never actually come, but I don't mind. 

People joke that he's taught me a lot, and I agree he has, but they never mean it in quite the same way I do. They don't know all the good things I've learned from him, and I don't think he even realizes he taught me them by accident, by example, and sometimes I can't help but think that if he did, then he'd realize he's worth more than what everyone else expects of him. They say I'm a good influence on him, but I don't think I am, I just think it's been there all along. They'd never believe me if I said it was usually the other way around, him being the good influence on me. They'd probably just roll their eyes and pat me on the head, and totally ignore any suggestion that they could possibly be wrong about him, all while telling me that they're sure he is, if I believe it, then it must be true. That's what he's taught me the most, people's actions usually wind up speaking louder than their words, it doesn't matter what they all think or have to say about things, the minute one of them sits up with me at 4 in the morning and watches me puke my guts out, or forces me to go to sleep when I've been staring at the computer for hours trying to perfect some project that they've convinced me didn't need to be fixed to begin with, before I fall over from exhaustion, I'll worry about their opinions. That doesn't mean I don't try to get him to talk, I just don't get as frustrated when he doesn't, anymore. When he wants to speak, he does, I won't force it out of him. 

"Because I love you and you'd be totally lost without me." I rush it out so quickly, it doesn't even sound like a sentence, just gibberish, and shove him off me, fearing my little pink cheeks, turning black and blue if his fingers were going to have anything to say about it. "And DON'T even think of saying it." He starts mouthing it, and I fix him with a warning stare, "Brian." Usually that works. 

"Kano...Kanokanokanokanokanokanokanokanokano," he taunts me. 

I slap my hands over my ears, I hate that word, almost as much he hates me bringing up love. "La la la la I'm not listening." If anyone saw us right now, they would think we were total freaks, and I think they'd be right. Me with my fingers in my ears, singing at the top of my lungs, drowning out him repeating some idiotic thing that I'm not even sure is a legitimate word to get on my nerves and prove his point, and boy has he proved it over and over and over again. Words are just words, are just words. "Are you done?" He has to run out of breath sooner or later. His mouth finally stops moving and he nods, proud of how easy it is for him to annoy me and totally disregard the truth, I loved him then and I love him now. He'll just have to learn to live with it. 

"You should have seen the look on everyone's face when I showed them the cake, your mother was especially taken by it," he snickers. 

I am immediately alarmed. "Were they surprised?" 

"You could say that." Oh. God. 

"What kind of cake is it? Brian?" 

"It's this big old pink monstrosity, with some... white trimming. It's very life like," he laps up the look of utter panic on my face, demonstrating some vague size and shape with his hands. "It was a collaborative effort. Emmett came up with the concept, Vic found us a speciality bakery and I wrote the copy." I start taking steps towards him, and he starts backing up, continuing his explanation. "It says 'welcome to manhood' on one side, and 'please enter cautiously' on the other. You should see where we put the candles." 

He might be older and stronger, but I'm quicker and I'm picturing my mother looking at this thing, which gives me about a thousand times more motivation. I pick the first thing up that I see and toss it at his head, but a pillow doesn't do much damage and it only pleases him more that he's managed to rattle me once again. I don't know why but he seems to get some kind of pleasure out of watching me squirm. I think he just likes knowing that he can still exert some control over things, and not let me get too comfortable. Which probably means the best way to react when he gets like this, is to give him no reaction, it only eggs him on further. I'm still working on how to be reasonable at all times, but that would require some lobotomy I'm not willing to subject myself to, even for him. 

"Well I hope you like the cake, because it's the only pink thing of mine you'll be putting in your mouth, for a while." I can't really deny him anything else, so I have to use what I do have. 

"I'm sure I'll find something else to occupy it with." 

"I'm sure you will." I busy myself with remaking the bed, surprised that he's let it go unmade for this many hours. If the sheets are so much as wrinkled the wrong way, he has a heart attack. "Give me a hand." It's not that I mind the sex with other people, I've taken advantage of that out a few times of my own, and thankfully I don't have to look at it anymore. It's just that sometimes it feels like he goes out of his way to remind me, that even the one thing I do have to bargain with isn't worth all that much. 

"Yeah, like all the cursing I'm going to be doing when I sit in some disgusting leftover food you leave in the jeep." 

Did I say he taught me that actions speak louder than words? Sometimes I forget that I'm still learning. I could kiss him all over again, for that one. "I never leave anything in there. I'd never hear the end of it, if I did." 

"You're tucking it in the wrong way." He points to the corner of the sheet I'm pulling on, and I just nod and yank. I have no idea what the right way is to tuck a sheet in, as long as it covers the bed and doesn't hang out of the sides, that's all that matters to me, he'll come over and fix it when I'm done anyway, he always does. "Well now that it's yours, I'm sure you'll make as much a mess out of it, as you do every other surface you occupy." 

"What are you talking about?" I try desperately to act like the 21 year old man I'm supposed to be today, but the 16 year old in me is ready to pounce in glee. I knew he couldn't keep my birthday present a secret for long. 

"I bought myself a new car. Since you're going to be doing all this traveling around, and leaving me behind, and I'm tired of having to drive you everywhere, you should have a way to get there for yourself. That way if you're late, you can't blame me anymore. They frown on that in corporate America, by the way." He just keeps making the bed like we were discussing changing laundry detergent and not him handing me the keys to his beloved toy. Sometimes I think he loves that thing, more than he loves me. 

"Are you shitting me? There's no way you'd give up that car, we'd have to pry the keys out of your cold, dead hands." 

He just reaches into his pocket and tosses them at me. "Now that you're all grownup, with all this money coming in, you can pay your own insurance, gas, maintenance, cleaning," he counts them off on his fingers, and I muss the sheets up, much to his consternation, crossing over to where he stands via the bed, "and all those other fun unexpected expenses. You can even buy your own drinks, but you'll have to stay sober enough to drive me home, because there's no way I'm leaving a Lexus in the parking lot of Babylon. Not that you're going to have time to drink between the diner and Rage and the new internship and school, anyway. Hell you won't even have time to give me a quick blowjob in the backseat, at that rate. You won't have time for me at all." 

"Jeez, you weren't lying when you said you'd find a way to keep your mouth occupied." I cover his mouth with my hand and work my fingers through the hair on the back of his neck, it's his weak spot. "Thank you. You did pretty good, for once." 

I feel his mouth move against my hand, and the wet struggle to free his tongue, from my grip, but I don't want him to ruin a perfect moment. I see the pink tip of his tongue, find a way between my fingers, and the though the notion of cupping his saliva is kind of gross, just the hint of that little bud is incredibly erotic, and I just tease him with my mouth, grazing against it with my lips and licking it with my tongue, biting gently with my teeth. He pulls my hand away, grabbing my head forcefully, and I feel heady and strong, being taller than he is while we kiss, for once. Though I know it's not possible, it almost feels like my tongue has gone deeper into his mouth, than it ever has before, from this position and I wonder if he realizes the advantage he has with his height. I'm usually shoving up, not down, he never has to fight for space, he just keeps plunging, now he knows what it feels like to dual for position. I love the slow end our kissing usually comes to, no more tangling, just a few lingering pecks. It's the total withdrawal that hurts the most. 

He leans his forehead to mine, and I swear he has to be able to feel my heart pounding in my chest, from the way he strokes my neck, trying to calm my heart rate and if that doesn't tell him than the anticipation mixed with the threat of biting his tongue out of his mouth if he dares utter that friggin word, must. He's toying with me, taking his time, he knows how much it means to me, and finally he steals one last look and he speaks. 

"That's still not your birthday present."


	17. Peach

I take a deep breath before I open the door, steeling myself. For some reason my anger has faded into nervous energy. I don't know why, it's not like he intimidates me and I have a right to be angry with him, but I feel like, if I fuck this up, I'll be asking for more trouble than I really want. I shake it off and twist the knob to the clang of the wind chimes that hang above the door, announcing my arrival, dragging my portfolio behind me. 

He looks surprised to see me, surprise tempered by caution. He closes the comic book he was reading, defensively, and looks around the counter for something more official to be doing, to show me how I've interrupted his life, once again. I don't care that he was reading, I know this place is important to him and I'm intruding, he doesn't have to prove it to me, but maybe he has to prove it to himself. 

"Can I help you with something?" 

I take a tentative step toward the counter, I don't really know how to go about this. "I came to talk to you about Rage." 

"The first edition is almost sold out, we might even break even and not owe the world our asses," he smiles a boyish smile, proud of himself. Proud of us. 

"That's good to hear." For some reason, his ability to let things pass over with nothing but a smile bothers me, more than I can rationalize. I can see why Brian has needed him to look the other way, all these years, because it doesn't bother him and that's what bothers me even more. It seems disingenuous somehow. "I guess you can figure out why I'm here though. I brought a list of illustrators you might want to call, to give you a hand." I search my jacket pocket in vein. 

"Why would I want another illustrator?" No one could really be as innocent as he looks right now, could they? 

"Because I can't work with you on the comic book anymore Mikey." 

"Why not?" He looks genuine. I don't actually have an answer to that, that makes any sort of rational sense. I'm mostly just being a coward, and I don't think he wants to know the real reason, because if I start I might not stop. 

"It'd be kind of awkward don't you think?" 

"Look, Brian is right, we could have something really great here, we can't let our difference of opinion get in the way." 

I was wondering which one of us was going to say his name first, and it certainly didn't take long, because Brian is always right in Mikey's world. 

"It was a little more than a difference of opinion. You totally sold me out." Maybe my anger wasn't as faraway as I thought. 

"I didn't sell you out." And neither is his, apparently. His eye twitches in time with his mouth, like he startles himself at the sound of his own voice. "I was looking out for my best friend, what did you expect me to do?" 

I suspect nothing I say to him will really matter, so I don't really have much to lose in the long run. "I expected you to act like you were my friend, too, or didn't I matter? I never really did, did I Michael?" 

"That's not true, you were my friend, you still are." I think he really believes that, and I would feel sorry for him, but his total lack of understanding over why he might have possibly been wrong is frustrating as hell. 

"Yeah you were a real peach." 

"You can't really believe that I wouldn't look out for Brian." 

"Of course I can, if there's one thing I would believe it's that, but I guess I thought, stupidly, that you would at least have enough decency to talk to me first. Because believe it or not, you're not the only one invested in looking out for him." I know I shouldn't have said that, but someone has to drag this out of him, one way or the other, and it may as well be me. 

"You were looking out for him, by fucking someone else behind his back?" His big doe eyes stretch to seemingly twice their size. 

"That's not what I'm saying."Sometimes, okay most of the time you have to spell things out for him. "You know what, I fucked up, bigtime. But I would have liked to have had the chance to tell him myself, instead of the ass backwards way you handled it." 

"You had every opportunity to tell him yourself." Point taken. "You would have only been telling him, because I caught you." 

"So what? So fucking what? At least it would have been coming from me and I deserved that right." 

"I didn't owe you shit Justin. You stopped deserving anything the minute you started fucking around, and I'm not saying that because it's Brian. I'm saying that because it was a totally fucked up thing to do." 

"That wasn't your call to make. And no matter how you try to spin it now, it'll always be about Brian." How could it not? He's known him since he had peach fuzz for a bush, only somewhere along the way, he forgot they outgrew that stage. 

"What does that mean?" I don't want to do this, I honestly don't, but it kills me, absolutely kills me, how little regard he's had for me, this whole time, and I was too stupid to notice. 

"He's not afraid to love you Michael, he already does, you already know it, it's just not enough for you, and I know that has to eat you up." His face falls and I feel like the worlds biggest asshole, but my mouth just has a will of it's own. "So how do you think I feel? Loving someone who's too fucking scared to love me back, and I know it's not because he's incapable. You get the best of him, I get the worst of him. You try living with that, and tell me how to handle it, because I don't know, and sometimes I fuck it all up. I would have at least liked to have had the opportunity to try though, and you took that away from me." 

He looks hurt, but I don't regret anything I've said. We all just tiptoe around the entire subject, like it's some dirty little secret, some other thing that I'm just supposed to understand, and I'm just tired of having to keep up the pretense. Because if they're the main attraction, then what does that make me? 

"Look I know Brian is a handful, but I warned you about that Justin. I told you from the very beginning and you wouldn't listen to me and no matter how difficult he is, he didn't deserve what you did." His voice is soft and soothing, and right on some level. 

"And I did? Because I don't really love him right? Because I hurt him and you don't hurt people you love." He motions, as if it to say something, but just half shakes his head. "When does he start having to make some kind of sacrifice Michael? When do you stop letting him hurt you? Do you love him any less because he does? Everything is not as simple as it seems is it?" 

I can see something beginning to sink in, he always gets this tiny look of shame when someone makes a point he hadn't really considered. He's not a stupid guy, but I think he gets embarrassed when people connect the dots before he does. He just crosses his arms and holds his stance. "What do you want from him Justin? A ring? A house? You know he's never gonna be like that. I don't understand what it is you want him to do." 

"Then I guess I understand why you don't think I've been trying to look out for him. I want him to be more than he is right now, because this isn't enough, for me or for him. Maybe it's enough for you and everyone else, but I refuse to believe that's all there is. I won't." 

I see fear in his brief glance in my direction. Fear that I'm right, fear that I might not be done interrupting his life yet. Fear that the more I push, the further away he's going to land, and the faster I'm going to jolt him out of his peach fuzz fantasies. And I fucking revel in it and desperately want to reassure him, all at once. Tell him that he has nothing to fear because I would never do that to Brian, never treat someone he holds that close to him, as shitty as he took it upon himself to treat me, and because I need his help, if I'm going to do this, but he has to be willing to meet me halfway and neither of us are ready for that. 

"I have to think about this Rage thing. I'll get back to you." He looks like he must have looked the first time Brian saw him, sulking and sad and needing someone to lift him up and just fly him above his cartoon world, just take him right out of the pages and bring him to life. And I know, I just know what it is Brian saw there, a way out, a place to escape for a little while. 

"You do that, but I wouldn't wait too long if I were you." I wander back to the door, stopped by a customer's entry, and I watch, he doesn't even notice that anyone has come in, doesn't hear the wind chimes or feel the breeze, adrift in his own thoughts, because nothing else matters. 

Despite appearances to the contrary, Brian is only a superhero on cheap paper with ink stains and Mikey is no kid in need of a rescue anymore, and every comic book has a last panel, every single one of them. 

I leave, just walk out into the fresh air and drown in it, leave him to his fantasy world. I feel the list of illustrators I'd been searching for, deep in the crevice of my pocket, and it hits me, and I can't believe how long it took me to figure this all out. I laugh at my own stupidity, at my own expense, empowered and thrilled, crumble up the list and make litter of it. 

He might have been molding Rage all along, hearing all the words, making up a lore to store a million fantasies to tell himself while he waited for a rescue... but I'm the one he saved and it's my hand that brought him to life.


	18. Gold

Maybe this was a bad idea. Nothing good ever seems to come from me showing up in unexpected places. Besides how am I going to explain this? Just happened to be in the neighborhood, noticed your light was on, thought I'd stop by. I think you packed my socks by accident, figured I'd come pick them up. I guess I could try the truth. I listened to your voicemail 50 times and I panicked because I could hear how nervous you were, wishing me a belated happy birthday and thanking me again for letting you take the computer, and then you just stopped speaking and seemed to hold your breath for an eternity and I know how hard you were trying not to ask underneath all that nervous laughing and umming and ahhhing, and it felt like a needle in my ear. So I paced around for an hour, dialing a few digits and hanging up more times than I can count, and I paced some more, and then I finally said fuck it, and I drove here so quickly, I don't even remember getting in my car. And here I am with a fucking box of pizza and absolutely no excuse to be here, but every reason in the world. Yeah, I guess I could try that. 

"Brian..." And I see your face relax into a relieved smile and I don't give a shit what excuse my mouth comes out with, I know this is where I'm supposed to be. "Come in." 

"I thought I'd come see how the other half lives." I try to look surprised at the large room, separated by just one kitchen counter and absolutely nothing else, like this is the first time I've ever been here, but he's so happy I don't think he would notice or care if it wasn't. He doesn't really have much, by way of furniture, his bed from home, a couch and a couple of end tables from his mother's basement, a couple of chairs and a small desk with his computer on it. 

"You brought me a pizza?" He laughs, a lush sound to my welcoming ears. I forgot I was holding the thing. 

"I figured you wouldn't have anything to eat in this rat trap." I shove the box at him, and he grabs it like he hasn't eaten in days. 

"You figured right. I'd offer you something, but I know you don't drink anything with carbonation and no alcohol, after sundown." He offers me a slice of pizza, and I accept with minimum fuss, much to his surprise, and mine. "What are you doing trolling around here, instead of Babylon on a Saturday night?" 

His smile descends into a frown as the realization of how ridiculous the question is occurs to him. Where else would I be? "Mikey threatened to have everyone singing Happy Birthday to me when I walked in. I figured everyone celebrating my birth was enough humiliation for one week." 

"I thought you only celebrated achievement." He gives me a wry stare. 

"And look at how embarrassing it is, when you celebrate everything but." 

"I would have gotten you something, but I didn't think I'd see you." 

"I'm sure I can think of a way for you to make up for it." I wave my slice of pizza, letting the cheese dangle off the end and slurp it up with my tongue, which fascinates him. 

"I'm not tying anything to my balls again! Or untying anything from anyone else's, for that matter." 

So the hustler was a slight miscalculation, wasn't my first and won't be my last, but the condom balloons were pretty fun, as I recall. "You're just afraid I'll tie the knot so tight again, we'll need the scissors to get it off. I remember the look on your face when you saw me coming at you with them." 

"Do you blame me? You weren't exactly sober." He pats his balls, silently reassuring them, that he won't let me near them with any sharp objects and shaky hands again. "Besides I wouldn't have been the only one missing out, if you had slipped." 

"You mean I could have been rid of you with one snip? Why didn't you tell me that before?" 

"A sadomasochistic streak?" 

"Yours or mine?" 

"I don't know, whose turn is it to play the victim?" 

"That's just so four weeks ago." We both ease into a comfortable chuckle. I forget how quick he is, sometimes, everything has just felt like slow motion for so long. 

"So what do you think of my humble abode?" He looks around, he doesn't have far to go, you turn your head left you see one half, turn right, you see the other half. 

"Humble is a good word." 

"It could have been worse you know." I arch an eyebrow in doubt, I don't see how. "Emmett offered to help me decorate. He wanted to hang a gold lam shower curtain and these neon frilly things on the window." He grimaces. I can relate. 

"How did you talk him out of it?" 

"I told him I was going for a stark, blank look, like one of my canvases. He told me I should listen to my artistic genius, but if I ever changed my mind..." Not bloody likely. "He was so disappointed when he saw what I finally bought, but he did tell me it complemented my color scheme perfectly." 

"I hope you included a can of Raid." For that I get a flip of the bird, was it something I said? 

"I bought a new washcloth," which he proudly dispenses from a Big Q bag, "and a new set of sheets. My old ones were a little, uh... used." 

"All by yourself? I'm impressed. But I think Emmett had the right idea to start, white is the wrong color for sheets." He fondles the plastic package and the sound runs right up my spine, who buys sheets with the price stamped on the packaging? "Do they even have a thread count?" 

"They're just sheets!" 

"You're gonna regret those." He shrugs me off, ripping open the package, discarding it haphazardly in the general direction of the garbage can. I bend and throw it away. "These are all wrong. First of all you'll be washing them every other day when you spill something all over them, they're gonna itch like hell and you bought king size sheets for a full size bed." 

He strips his bed of his old sheets, totally ignoring my sound advice. "The only thing I plan on spilling on them, should blend right in," he looks over his shoulder back at me "and they're not flannel, so they won't itch, and I'll just tuck the extra sheet under the bed. What's the big deal?" 

I bite my thumbnail, trying not to reach out and rearrange the mess he's creating of making the bed, but I'm not very good with impulse reaction. "Move, go sit, or make yourself useful." I grab the sheet from his hand, and the slightest feel of them almost gives me hives. He just gives me a bewildered look, and moves out of my way. "Grab the other end and watch how I fold." I show him the correct way, expecting him to follow suit, but he's all thumbs and it's just easier if I do it myself. He gladly steps aside and lets me finish. At least it looks presentable, but it's such a poor choice, I have to shake my head. He'll learn on his own, presentable on the surface doesn't hold a candle to quality, sometimes investing a little more is worth the long term benefits. 

"They were on sale, maybe I'll go get another package," he teases. 

"Don't even think about it." 

He snorts and makes himself comfortable on the end of the bed. "They're just sheets Brian, just sheets." 

I sit cautiously next to him. "I'll remind you of that after you've slept with them for a few days." 

We sit quietly for a moment, looking anywhere but at each other. We both know why I'm here and neither one of us wants to broach the subject. I'd like to think I'm the noble one, taking his mind off things, occupying him with meaningless conversation, but the truth is I probably needed the distraction just as much as he did, and getting high enough to pass out just didn't rank up there as a pleasant way to the pass the time. It only exacerbates the problem, because I just focus on forgetting and the more I try to forget, the harder the focus becomes, like now. I'm doing it again. Shit. There was no way I was ever really going to leave him here by himself, once he called, was there? 

"I'm sorry Brian." He sounds so defeated, so tired of having to apologize. That's exactly why sorry is such a waste of time, because once you start, you'll never stop, there will always be some way you disappoint someone, no matter how many sorry's they collect. But I'm glad he at least acknowledges it. 

"I'm not the one who has to live with these cheap things." 

"I'm not talking about the sheets." 

"I know." I leave my words just hanging there, between us, and his face tenses up, his fingers manipulating the threadbare cotton beneath him, and it's the only thing I can focus on, how his fingers circle around and back and forth in the same pattern, over and over. "Where is Lancelot this evening?" He looks like he's playing a fucking concerto, and I have to avert my eyes. 

"He's probably practicing. I don't really know. I didn't really want him to be around me tonight." 

"Trouble in paradise?" 

"If this is paradise, I'll take my chances on hell." Something leaps in my chest, the same feeling I had when I heard his message, and I'm riveted to his form, once again. "Walking out only made it worse. God, I made such a mess out of everything." He buries his head in his hands, and I exhale a breath of relief, and watch my hand move towards his neck and retreat before it connects. 

"Yeah you did." Well now that that's out in the open. "You weren't the only one." 

"I just wanted something Brian, any little thing I could hold onto for once." 

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to ease away the tension between my temples. "Why didn't you just ask?" I'm aware of his face lifting out of his hands peering over at me, and I hear the crack in his voice, and my chest tightens. 

"Look where it got us the last time. I couldn't ask you for something like that again." He doesn't even try to hide his tears, like he usually does, and all I can hear is a whimper and busy sounds from the street, an ambulance siren, cars passing, I'm not sure. 

"You don't remember any of it, do you?" I rub the skin of my eyelids raw. 

"I remember gold balloons on the ceiling, and thinking it was a really sophomoric choice," he manages a bit of mirth, between choking gasps, "and the bat coming at my head, but not connecting and you calling me. And that's it. That's all I see. The next thing I remember is waking up and thinking I was floating on the ceiling with the balloons, that that was heaven, just floating in a sea of gold, and it didn't bother me." 

"You thought you were dead when you woke up?" My voice is so faint, I can barely hear myself. 

He sniffles and takes a few deep breaths, trying to collect himself. "I never told anybody that." 

"Why not?" 

"I didn't think anybody would want to hear how comfortable I was thinking I was dead, that maybe it was better there. Nobody really wanted to hear anything I had to say, they just wanted me to get back to normal. You wanted me to go back to normal." 

I turn and look at him, slack jawed my throat constricted and eyesight blurry, seeing two of him, "I'm listening now." 

"It just got easier you know? Not saying anything. I just let everyone assume what they wanted, because I couldn't look at them. Look at you, and lie, and that's what you all wanted me to do. Pretend like I remembered, pretend everything was okay, pretend it never happened, so I just said nothing and figured it wasn't really lying if I just kept quiet, and it went away, just like everyone wanted it to. So why not stay quiet about everything, make all the bad things go away?" He gives the floor a rueful glance. "Jokes on me, huh?" 

I feel dizzy, like my body is moving, though I'm perfectly still, like I'm spinning him around on some long ago faraway dance floor that maybe never existed. Maybe I imagined it, and he's the one with the right idea, black it all out and go back to my life. Go back to that hotel door, and walk in the other direction, or maybe go all the way back to the night I met him, and just get into my car and drive off, never noticing him. Twist and shape my entire fucking life to my liking. But I'm cursed with a steel trap for a memory, forever sealed in my head. I remember looking around and seeing those balloons before I walked in, and they were so fucking tacky, but what high school prom isn't? Who the fuck was I to be there? And now all I see is him floating on the ceiling above my head, out of my reach, dripping in blood and my stomach grips in some intense struggle to keep from bursting out of my skin. What would really be worse, never having met him to begin with or watching him bleed to death because I did? 

"I'm sorry Justin." 

He nods his head in acknowledgment, in acceptance, and I don't really know what I expected him to do, spit at me, push me away, pretend I didn't exist, I just know I didn't expect him to slide his hand, over mine, weave his fingers between my own, massage my palm, with the same rhythm of his cotton concerto, and I certainly didn't expect myself to let him, but it's such an odd and calming sensation, like he's pricking my veins, and tangling them in his hand, wrapping and worming his way under my skin. And I think is this how someone knows they're still really alive, and it's not some hazy illusion? The ability to feel things? Is that how he knew he was alive after all, because he could feel pain when he got his bearings and the drugs wore off. Maybe it's how he convinced himself he was alive this entire time. Find some way to feel something, anything other than totally numb, and floating out of his body. 

I look at his hand in mine, and the deep concentration of his tightly shut eyes, and I pull my hand away but pull his arm toward my chest, feel his skin slide across my shirt and his head rest right on my shoulder, and I hold it there. Just hold it and brush my fingertips under his chin and kiss the crown of his head, feel his hair in my mouth, thankful that it's whole and dry, and blood isn't dripping through my hands or soaking my shirt. 

I pull him with me, kicking my shoes off, and he does the same, and I sink into the cool, crisp cotton, but he doesn't let go, he can't, he needs to feel my body, hear my heart beating in his ear, so he just lays, right on top of me, as if I'm the mattress, and I let him, wrap my arms around his back and hold as tightly as my grip will allow, scared that he might just float away if I let go. 

I stare at the ceiling, willing my eyes to stay open until I no longer see his face in a cloud of gold balloons above me, but I can feel them drifting closed, feel my chest rise and fall with the weight of his body, sound asleep on top of me. 

And as they close, all I see are fields of gold.


	19. Sap Green Leaves

I'm running through a forest, and the trees keep bending, blocking my pathway. It smells kind of funny, my nose is not used to such fresh air and I feel an itch start somewhere deep in my nostrils. I'm picking my way through broken branches, trying to push some trees back into an upright position, but my feet are stuck in piles of green leaves and I feel some kind of sticky, disgusting substance, the tree's leaking sap all over me. It looks like honey, but feels slimy and thick, and I can't lift my feet. It feels like I'm drowning, but there's no water to be seen. The trees just hover above my head threatening to fall right on top of me, but the sting of clean air makes my chest pump and my adrenaline flow, the sap solidifying at my feet, holding me in place, the green leaves turning brown and dissolving into bits and I just push forward, my hands reaching out with some savage force, holding the tree at bay, and I see a clearing through the mass of tangled branches and bent limbs, and I hear a voice... 

"You know it's not safe to just leave your door unlocked like that." 

I feel my hands grasping at the bark of the tree, only it feels fleshy and warm and if I look closely enough it looks like someone's face. It is someone's face. It's Brian's face. It's my fingers practically clawing the skin off his cheek and from his expression, if I don't stop soon, my hand won't be returned to me with all of my fingers attached. I shake my head, and rub the sleep from my eyes, resting my chin on his chest, taking in his countenance. He doesn't motion for me to get off him, he just holds my back tighter, his eyes focused on something on the wall behind my head. Maybe he regrets spending the night with me, maybe it was too much for me to ask of him. I hear a crackling sound coming from the same direction he stares at, and I turn to investigate it's origins. 

"I thought I'd bring you breakfast. I guess I should have called first and made sure I brought enough." He waves the bag around, dejectedly. It's almost like his entire body sways with the effort it takes to keep standing. His face is so stricken, I may as well have kicked him in it, it might have hurt less. I'm stuck, I don't know which way to turn or what to say first, or to whom. My brain tells me I should be scurrying right now, pushing myself off of Brian and explaining that it's not what it looks like, but it is what it looks like and my instincts tell me that they'd both appreciate the truth. The truth is I don't feel guilt, though I know I should, and the truth is I'm in no hurry to get up, because this is the most relaxed I've felt in weeks and I know that makes me the most selfish shit that ever lived, at this moment. 

I untangle my limbs slowly, and roll off of Brian, onto my back, an overwhelming feeling of emptiness settling into my stomach. I just want to close my eyes and go back to sleep and pretend this is all still part of some dream I'm not yet meant to understand. I feel Brian lifting himself up wordlessly, but with some sort of purpose, and I watch him helplessly, my body screaming to block him before he gets too far, but I'm fascinated by what he might do and I couldn't stop him even if I tried. Ethan flashes me a quick look of anger and disbelief that I've just left him to float in the breeze, all by himself. But most of all he looks disappointed, and I'm so fucking tired of seeing that look on his face, caused by something I've done or said, and I know I shouldn't blame him and I don't, but I do and I have this very strange notion that I can actually get up and bolt out of the door, without anyone noticing, before I do anymore damage and it gets me up on my feet, but that's as far as I go. I'm fascinated by the way they stand, like two actors in a play who've forgotten their lines, and I want to call out from the audience with their cues, only I've never seen this play before, and I was always much better with creating scenery than memorizing dialogue to try out for the lead roles. 

"Did you bring coffee?" 

Okay maybe that wouldn't have been the first line I gave Brian, something more along the lines of 'what the fuck do you want' or anything involving the word 'fuck' for that matter. Ethan just stares at him, dumbfounded as Brian takes the bag from his hands, rummaging through the contents and coming up with a croissant and a fresh cup of coffee. He smiles easily, a look of false gratitude on his face, as he sips it, seating himself in the same position he was in last night, eating pizza and trying his best to avoid the real reason he'd come to see me. I feel a nervous laugh building in my gut at the lunacy of this situation, and Brian's pointed obliviousness, but I suppress it out of better judgment and common propriety. 

"A slice of pizza?" He offers Ethan cold leftovers, with all the practiced courtesy of a well mannered host. He grins at me with his teeth and not much else. "You should have told me we'd be having company I'd have to greet Justin, I would have at least brought a toothbrush." He turns back to Ethan, still waiting for him to move an inch. "Please forgive my breath, I can still taste some of that really rich sauce from last night, it must stink." He leers at Ethan like he wants to snap his neck or fuck him into unconsciousness, I'm not sure. 

"What the fuck is going on here?" Good question, Ethan, you get bonus points for the day's first use of the word fuck. I guess I really should stick with painting trees and cutting out leaves in the background. I suck at this casting the right person for the right role thing. 

"I... uh... Ethan, I, well, um...Brian just... we just... I..." 

"Will you just spit it out already? I simply can't take the anticipation a moment longer," he says evenly, a lifetime of rehearsed boredom serving him well. 

"Shutup Brian." He waves me off with a slight flick of his wrist, slurping quietly on his coffee. It's the first articulate thing I've said this morning. He looks almost innocent with his feet dangling about in socks and the top button of his jeans undone, his long body stretched over the small stool at my kitchen counter. I'd like nothing more than to keep him there all day, and try to capture him as he appears now, soft. I relax my tense shoulders, studying his form, but I can feel Ethan's eyes boring holes into the back of my head and now I feel guilt, but not for his benefit. 

"Don't let him get to you Justin, ignore him, say what you have to say and take as long as you want." I can tell from the way his brown eyes dart back and forth between us, that he feels like he's walked into some warped situation he'll never understand, that he doesn't want to, and that makes me glad, because I'm suddenly feeling protective of it, I don't want him to understand. 

"It's not like that, don't jump to conclusions." I start to get defensive and I know Brian is watching my every move, as calm as he appears to be, his feet keep swaying back and forth. It's what he does, when his hands are already occupied as they are now with the cup of coffee, he has to keep moving somehow when he gets anxious. He's waiting for me to reveal something, some kind of clue about where my head is at. No, that's not it, he's waiting for me to reveal him. To Ethan. I go to apologize, but the words just don't come, because I don't want them to, I don't feel sorry. "So this is pretty awkward, huh?" 

I let out the laugh I'd been holding in, and it comes out as a strangled giggle, but no one laughs with me. Ethan just stares as if I'm some stranger he's never met and Brian just stares at him, staring at me, daring him. I feel like it's my turn to have forgotten the lines now, that this play can't proceed until I say the crucial line that leads into the final act. I want to run and hide behind my fake cardboard trees, shake the leaves until they fall off and distract everyone from center stage. 

"So what is this? Some kind of sick game the two of you play?" There goes Ethan, always ready with the big save. 

"I guess he forgot to tell you this is how we get our kicks." 

"Brian, please! You're not helping." He shrugs, meaningfully. Everything with him is fucking meaningful, can't he just be simple for once in his life? Can't he throw a jealous hissy fit like the rest of the sane universe? 

"Seems like Justin forgot to tell me quite a few things, like the fact that he was seeing you again, didn't you Justin?" 

I want to slap Brian upside the head, force him to look at Ethan and see how a man should react when his territory is being invaded and then I want to slap Ethan upside the head for his queening out and thinking I'm his territory to queen out over. My God, Brian is right, I am a drama princess. 

"I didn't realize it was any of your business whom Justin sees." Yeah, what he said! 

"It became my business the minute he started seeing me." 

Hey... HEY! That's just not right. I open my mouth to speak, but I have a feeling that I could have made it out before and neither of them would have noticed, from the way they're staring daggers at each other. 

"How about I decide who I see when I want to see them?" I point at myself, and they both break their stare to look in my direction. I have the floor again, and I'd like it to open up and swallow me into some alternate vortex where men in loincloths feed me grapes all day and Brian worships at my altar at least three times a day. Ethan can fiddle in the background, for some mood music. Yes, that's what I'd like. Maybe they could have a gladiator fight to the death, over me. If I'm going to be a drama princess I may as well go all out and shoot for drama queen. I've got nothing to lose at this point, except everything. "Besides I'm not seeing anyone, so I shouldn't have to explain myself to anyone either." I look at both of them, hoping they both get the message. 

Shit, why should I have to be the one to pull off a one man show with all eyes on me? I'm not the one with the ego large enough to think I could. Either one of them would do just fine. 

"So what the fuck do you call what we've been doing for two months?" 

Brian looks at me with interest, wanting to hear my answer almost as much as Ethan. Fucking? Having fun? Wasting time? Playing around? "Escaping." 

Christ, of course now would be the time I remember all my fucking lines. We are so far from the final act, we've moved onto the sequel. 

"Well that's..." He studies me for a moment and a fleeting moment of regret stabs me in my empty stomach. He simply nods his head with a grace that I wish I possessed, and he slaps an understanding look on his face. "If you don't feel comfortable talking with him here, I understand. I can wait." 

Brian stands with no warning and Ethan doesn't flinch. 

And that's when I see it. 

"Don't fucking talk about me like I don't exist, little boy," he hisses. "I existed long before you were a faint one note little shrill sound in the distance and I'll exist long after you've played your last song riding off into the sunset." 

Ethan falters back a step and Brian leans towards him, his arm spreading in front of me, protecting me from some imagined harm. 

See him. For what seems like the first time. 

"Yeah, you'll exist, like some kind of cancer that just keeps metastasizing." 

An ephemeral wince takes over Brian's body and an empty, hollow victory replaces Ethan's cocksure stance. 

His expression changes, some kind of pain registering all over his features, jaw set and locked in a permanent clench. 

"Shutup Ethan!" I can't stand it, I don't want to hear something like that. 

"I can't believe you're defending him again." He takes a deep breath, regards me like I'm a child who doesn't quite understand the concept of patience yet. "I'm leaving, because this all just a little too much drama for me, this early in the morning. I don't thrive on it, like the two of you seem to. Call me when you don't have to be afraid to talk for yourself." 

I swear I see smoke stacks. 

"What the FUCK do you know about him being afraid?" 

"Brian, it's okay, it's not a big deal. Ethan's just upset, right Ethan? I'd be upset too. This is hard on all of us." I reach out to grab his shirt at the waist, try to keep him in place, try to keep some semblance of control before this spins out into something none of us are prepared for, but he just strains at my clutch. 

"You think because you've fucked him for a couple of months, you've just got it all figured out? Well guess what, guess who he calls when he's afraid? When he needs something? Where were you?" He challenges a speechless Ethan who looks to me, beseeching me to explain that this is just more of the games Brian likes to play. Tell him that he's just a pawn, and he is, but not in the way he believes. He doesn't understand, and I don't want him to. 

I look at the floor, rooted to the spot I stand in, straining to keep Brian from continuing, I've changed my mind, I don't want the drama. I'm content to be a stagehand. 

"I'll call you Ethan." And I will. And I'll explain all of this somehow, with words that make sense. I'll have it all planned, because improvisation obviously doesn't work for us. 

I watch him walk to the door, give us both one last look, his head involuntarily shaking back and forth in judgment. And just beyond him, I see the hallway, as he opens the door, and I realize I no longer have the urge to run and get lost in plain sight or otherwise. 

I simply watch him close the door.


	20. Violet

Say it with flowers, "sorry for the blood on the carpet", "didn't mean to call you ungrateful bastards", really any number of apologies he seemingly always had to make. I guess that's what it was, his way of apologizing without ever really having to say he was sorry, when I was younger. He would always come home with a basket of African violets and a bottle of wine and present it to my mother without a word, just shrugging his shoulders and nodding. She would accept it after looking at it skeptically, and I'd watch and she would smile like it was a surprise, every single time. I guess I never really noticed that her smile never reached her eyes, and I never thought about Jack making such a big gesture in front of everyone. He always knew what time dinner was and that all three of us would be sitting around waiting for him to come home before we could eat. So it never occurred to me that my mother was putting on as much of a show for our benefit as he was.

Violets were her favorite flowers, still are, so I never bring her any. They were always kind of strange looking to me, not quite red, not quite blue. I just find the closest place selling a bouquet and stuff them in her hands whenever I get around to one of my bi-annual visits. And she gives me that smile, the same smile she always gave him. I think she told me once that she likes them so much because they refract the light better than any other flower, because of their color. Figures that we can't even agree on that much. She was never very successful at keeping up her own small garden, though she'd attempt it every year. She was lucky though. Violets tend to grow closer to the ground, so he never got a chance to ruin them in one of his fits of rage, because he wouldn't notice them. He just picked at the first bunch of flowers he saw, his face red with rage and too many beers, grabbing and pulling and crumbling up petals until they became part of the mulch they grew in. He thought it was a waste of her time, that it distracted her from other pressing matters like mopping the floors or doing his laundry. He couldn't have that. Personally, I was surprised he wasn't happy just having her out of nagging mode for a little while, but whenever any of us had our own sanctuary, he always wanted to ruin it.

I would survey the disaster area after he'd plowed through, and there her sturdy violets stood in the corner, still intact. I could feel my own face growing more and more red with disconcerting anger, until I was almost stumbling blindly back into the house. She'd be sitting and staring at nothing with a cup of tea, or maybe it was brandy in that teacup, now that I think about it. Her face was just a blank slate, her eyes dead, and I can so clearly remember her telling me one time "why do you care, at least it wasn't you," as if she was upset at that very fact, because after all, it should have been me. Her precious flowers were always so much more of a sanctuary she wanted to protect, more than her own children.

That's what I felt this morning, that same red hot heat rising up my neck, but when I looked around, I didn't see any mess or any cause for such an irrational response. All I saw was him standing there helpless, trying to hold me back from flying off into a rage. It was the sound of the door shutting that snapped me out of it. I'd forgotten where I was for a moment, just so consumed with this violent urge to scream "you have no fucking idea" over and over, until the kid shit in his pants and ran off, but the little fucker just stood there in all his judgmental arrogance, so convinced he knew everything, and that just made me angrier. Who the fuck gave him the gift of second sight?

I guess I expected Justin to follow him like the good little boyfriend making amends, and I felt this... I don't even know, just this burning feeling in my lungs pass over me in waves while I waited. Like when you swallow that salty water from the ocean unexpectedly, and in those few seconds that you spend choking, you think you'll never breathe again. You can't even remember what it feels like to breathe naturally, though you've spent your lifetime doing it without thinking. It's just this panicking sensation that sets in. But Justin didn't leave, he just watched him go and then looked back at me with the same expression he gave me that night he came home, after I found out, as if *he* was the one who was drowning. *Him*. His blue eyes just looked like they had been wrestled out of the comfort of his own complacency and thrust into confusion, and they blamed me for putting him in that state. At least that's what it felt like. But something changed the more he stared at me, waiting for me to calm myself down. His fucking blue eyes just started to sear into my skin with this look of possession.

I couldn't watch him. I just turned my back, not even seeing what was in front of me, just grabbing desperately for a shoe, for my coat, for whatever would get me out of that apartment more quickly. I felt like such a fucking fool, *such* an ass, losing it over some inconsequential little thief, like some jealous spurned lover. It was just such a trite cliche, and the thought of Justin standing there in all of his smug insight just pushed me further and further towards the door. Then that little son of a bitch grabbed my arm, he just fucking grabbed it and spun me around, as if to tell me I couldn't leave until he said what he had to say. Only I didn't want to hear any more words, any more explanations or apologies. I want the last thing out of his mouth to be "I fucked up and it's all my fault" and we'll take it from there, but the look he wore on his face told me I'd be waiting a lifetime to hear something like that, even though it's something I probably deserve. At least that much. But he's already let me get away with much more. He won't be offering up all his dignity as an act of conciliation.

I kept waiting for the feeling to pass, for my blood to stop coursing at full speed through my veins. But everything was compounded by the fact that he had my arm in such a tight grip and would not let go of it, no matter how much I tried to pull away, *everything*, it was just all rushed together. His blue eyes blazed, just wanting to devour me, his hand held me steady, a thumping sound of someone hammering a nail into a wall in the apartment underneath our feet drifted through the floor, the sun poured in through dirty windows making it seem duller than usual, my fucking body felt like it was on fire and my vision settled somewhere between peripheral blurriness and razor sharp focus on his face.

It was that one word, just one word, that's all it took.

"Stay."

And everything just refracted. I never wanted something so badly in my life. I know what they mean now, wanting it so much you can taste it. I know what it tastes like, like a pool of sodium filled saliva rising out of your throat and filling your mouth.

I yanked, I just yanked so hard I almost knocked him over when I pulled my arm out of his hold. I couldn't even hear myself think, if I was thinking at all, much less hear anything else. I couldn't see anything but him, and my body felt like I'd finally released the stranglehold it was in for several moments, so I just grabbed at the first thing I saw, his shirt, to steady myself. Grabbed so hard the collar tore a little, but I didn't care and neither did he. I don't even know how I knew where to find the bed, but I did and I just tossed him on it, like a rag doll.

My skin felt so warm. This unmistakable burning sensation just seemed to pour out, the more he stared up at me with those blue eyes, waiting in silence. Eyes that just speak a thousand fucking things all at once when they're filled with life, and that kill me when I've made them blank and unresponsive. But they were alive, so terrifically alive and welcoming and safe. I just shrugged my shirt off, dismissing its buttons for getting in my way. Almost immediately I felt his hands roaming all over my skin, sure it was burning him, and that's what I wanted. I just wanted him to feel it, if only for a moment, feel that all consuming heat I was feeling. He let me raise his arms over his head and collapse on him, with all my weight. Let me bury my tongue so far in his mouth, giving it over to him, he wouldn't need one of his own to speak any longer. Even the sheets felt warm, slept in and comfortable, for a minute. He just wrapped his legs around me and his hands around my neck, with no intention of letting go, never letting go. I could feel him pulling my mouth into his lungs it seemed, daring me to dive further and offering up his breath for me to breathe in, if I took the dare, and I did. I'd do it a thousand more times if he asked.

His hands moved down to my ass, reaching into my pocket for my wallet, like I was a pimply senior back in high school with the same condom I put in there when I started in freshman year and he was the jock who was finally going to give me a reason to use it. But hey, drastic moments call for drastic measures and I was never more glad to always be prepared. The funny thing is I thought he was going to play with my ass, and I was about to stop him when his hands got down there, because playful just wasn't a mood I was in. I just wanted to be inside him in every way I could imagine, up his ass, in his mouth, in his blood, wrapped up in his skin. I wanted him to feel me all over every part of him, every time he lifts his foot, or blinks his eyelids, just feel me cloak his every movement, leave a red hot impression stamped on everything that is him.

I could feel from the way his fingers gnawed at my skin, leaving a trail of unintended pinches, that he was trying to find some way in, some place to possess that was all his own, down my back, over my shoulders, sliding up my chest and over my face, into my hair, rolling me onto my back and jockeying for position, but he didn't stay there long. He changed direction at some point, his hands pulling at the zipper on my jeans, trying to possess my cock. Even his feet got into the action, trying to loosen the grip of the denim around my calves, but I grabbed his wrists with one hand, just held them at bay, and pulled the material off, kicking myself free from its entrapment, loving the feeling of his smooth khaki's riding my bare legs and his ripped t-shirt grazing my chest, my dick rubbing against the zipper of his pants, tempting him, the bulge from his own straining to meet my touch. I finally let his hands go, and they were on his shirt pulling it over his head in record time. I helped him out of his pants and his underwear and he offered himself to me, to take over, take every part of him with no inhibition, and I want that so much, want to be able to do the same in return, but I can't. Especially not when he's grabbing at me and looking up at me with those blue eyes and trying so hard to find some way in. So I just flipped him onto his stomach, pushing his hands away from their treasure hunt, trailing my mouth from his ass, up his back, to his neck. He already owns the most important parts of me, the parts he can't feel with fingertips. Maybe out of desperation or insanity caused by my quickly subsiding, blinding rage, I wanted him to know that. It's just this overwhelming feeling that if he doesn't, if I can't do this right, this is the end of the line. I stopped, I just stopped right at his ear, looked at the way his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, anticipating my cock being buried up his ass where it belongs, and I opened my mouth and I could just feel *them* rise up naturally, like breath, and I feel them tumble out in a sea of salty saliva. I'm so sure he's heard me but he squared himself away, trying not to make a big deal out of it. His eyes just rolled forward staring at the sheets underneath him trying to hold onto his last breath, and he did the most amazing thing, just the most fucking amazing thing ever. He ignored it. He bucked his hips up, threw his head onto my shoulder, grabbed my arms and wrapped them around his chest with his own and didn't say a word. Told me what he wanted, told me how he needed me, told me where I should be, inside him always, without ever saying a word.

That first push in was slow and strained, my dick acclimating itself to the confines of his ass. It'd been so long since I was in there, like eyes trying to focus when someone suddenly switches a light on in a room you've been in a million times. I could just feel all that heat falling away from me and being pounded into him, mingling with the vision of his blue eyes glazed over with some kind of obsessed desire. That's what I saw in my mind. When I came, it was like some force just charged through my body and rammed him so hard his head sprang up, and his own cock just leaked for what seemed like hours, like I'd pushed it out of him from behind.

He fell asleep in that position after a few minutes of panting, lying underneath me, me still inside him, bathed in our sweat mingling with the puddle on his sheets. Neither of us really cared and I had no place else to be, so I stayed and slept for a few hours more, just lying there, half on him, half off, so he could breathe, on those itchy sheets.

I watched him for a little while, pulling out of him as quietly as possible. He stirred but didn't wake up, just settled into the emptiness of being left alone. I just sat there and watched him sleep, before I got dressed and left without so much as a shower. If I were going home to someone I'd have been totally fucked from the smell alone. Amazing how blind you can be when you want to be.

I knew I shouldn't be there when he woke up, for too many reasons. I'm sure he's upset about that, about me breaking some imagined promise or being left on his own without any explanation or discussion about what it all means. It doesn't mean anything, at least nothing more special than it always meant, maybe he'll finally realize that. It was no big deal, the world didn't end, like he thought it would.

He asked me to stay and I stayed as long as I could. And I'll be there with him, long after I'm gone. I certainly made sure of that this time.

The absurd thought crosses my mind, lying here staring at the beams of my ceiling, that maybe Jack had it right all along, and I could have stopped all of this before it even had a chance to start.

I sigh to myself, it bounces off the walls and back into my ears, too much silence around here.

I should have just bought the fucking roses...


	21. Burnt Sienna

"Are you going to start this thing, or are we going to transport ourselves through sheer force of will?"

"Shut up! I'm getting there. I have to work myself up to it."

"Just turn the fucking ignition!"

"I've never driven this with you in the passenger seat."

"Where would you like me to sit? In the backseat?" His smile suggests that's not such a bad idea. "I'm NOT sitting in the backseat like a two year old. You're going to start the car and then turn the big wheel and the tires will go round and round, they might even make some forward motion."

I'm getting impatient, though I'm trying not to, but we've been sitting here for a good three minutes and Debbie will fry my ass on the diner grill if we show up late for this shindig. Melanie, Lindsay and Jennifer will each take turns flipping me over with a spatula. Maybe I can convince him to wrinkle his sweater or undo the button on his pants, to at least give the tiniest of impressions that we had a reason for being late. Explaining that he was terrified to drive just doesn't have quite the same naughty factor. I like to imagine what they think we do behind closed doors. I'm sure they'd be surprised either way.

"Promise me you're not going to tell me how to shift the gears or brake or turn or whatever else I'm sure you have a comment for."

"I don't make promises I can't keep. Now turn the damn key and let's go." He gives me a dirty look and I give him a self-satisfied grin, but he finally relents and starts the car, taking such pained breaths that I think he's about to fall into some asphyxiated state. So I slap him on the back, like you're supposed to when someone's choking. For that I get icicles where his irises used to be. So there's nothing stuck in his lungs, what's the difference?

"Here goes nothing." He glides out of the parking space with caution, checking every mirror over and over, though there's no traffic. He steals a few looks in my direction trying to discern some deeply imbedded terror he imagines is on my face. I betray nothing to him, just watch him with curiosity. "I can't believe you forked over your jeep. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I was tired of hauling your ass around town every time you needed to go somewhere, and tired of listening to you beg me to use it when I didn't need it."

"I seem to recall you getting some interesting favors out of me every time you made me beg." He watches me for my reaction, and I stare right at him.

"Keep your eyes on the road, not on me."

"Brian!" He just loves to say that word, loves to trap me by tossing it out there, because he knows he'll get my full, undivided attention every time I hear it. "No backseat driving."

I close my eyes and lean my head into the cushioned material, mostly because I don't want to see the road from this vantage point, but also because it's actually kind of relaxing not having to be alert at all times. I can just let my mind wander freely. Yes, I certainly could get used to being chauffeured around. I wonder what he would think if I brought home a chauffeur's cap, put a nice black tie and a white shirt on him, no pants though. Driving Mr. Kinney. It's been a long time since we've fucked in the jeep, a month or two I think. Wait until he sees the leg room in the Lexus. Ass to seat, ceiling to feet, it should be pretty interesting.

"Hey... Brian?" He says it so quietly I think I'm imagining his voice.

"Hmmm?" I open my eyes, because I can feel his stare, and I know he's spent the entire red light looking me over. I guess I surprise him, because he leans his head away abruptly and focuses on the road ahead of him, stalled in progression.

"Nothing, I just wanted to say," he considers carefully and I can almost see the scales in his brain weighing the pros and cons of revealing his original thought, "you look great, I mean really unbelievable." Looks like the cons won out.

"Don't I always?" His head nods almost imperceptibly because he hates feeding my ego but he can't deny that I'm wrong. It certainly took me long enough to realize that that's what truly bothers him. I could be the world's most insensitive shit, which I usually am, and he would continue on happily. It's not having anything to respond with, or more likely, to top me with, that gets to him each and every time. Once I realized that, everything else became so much more clear, like someone pulled the filter off the lid and let me sift right through him. "You heard the guy in the store, he said burnt sienna is my color, and I happen to think he was right." I run my fingers down the buttons of the shirt, pressing the smooth material to my skin. It's almost as soft as his ass, almost.

"Yeah, the guy in the store also said he didn't know what was more attractive, the thought of you matching the fire in a fireplace or you out of the shirt in front of a fireplace. You could have been wearing zebra stripes and plaid pants, and he would have told you they were all your colors. Could he have been anymore obvious?" He shakes his head disapprovingly, a slight frown on his face as he watches the gravel stretch out in front of him before he squeezes his eyes for a long second and inhales a long, slow breath. There's not a single person in the world that could beat him when it comes to being obvious. His face, his voice, his body language, even his breathing have always given away his every thought, no matter how hard he tries to let me mold him to my liking like a raw piece of clay, tries to hide himself and steel his resolve for my hands to shift and shape about. He will always be out and proud in ways he can't even imagine, ways that I will never be. There's a fire in him that stings my touch when I get too deep. It's like his body reflexes defensively and rejects my attempts. I can't contain him, I don't even want to, but mostly I don't want him to try and hold himself back for my sake. Sometimes, I just want him to let loose, burn out of control and never apologize for leaving nothing but ashes behind.

But he's not me, and never will be. To start with, he's not a fucking coward. But more importantly, his embers are of the slow, lasting variety, like fuel he siphons out in measured amounts, enough for survival, but not enough for complete destruction.

"Can I help it if the man had taste?"

He ignores me. Good for him. "Brian..." There goes that hesitation again. I know he doesn't want to come right out and say whatever is on his mind, but it's obviously bothering him. It's moments like this where I wish I had his hands, artist's hands, that know just what to do with a big lump of clay. My hands are totally useless, unless they're wrapped around a cock. "Why did you really give me this car?"

He's inching closer, testing how far he can put his hands to the flame, before he singes himself. "I told you already." He purses his lips in frustration, tired of playing my game. I know when I see that withered look that he's about three seconds away from total silence. More than anything, I cannot take his self-imposed solitude. I don't care what he's talking about, as long as he keeps speaking. He knows that, and he *uses* that, time and again, and I let him. "You really want to know why?" He perks up, suddenly interested again. "Because every time I go to a meeting at all of these big companies we represent and I pull into a lot filled with Mercedes and BMW's, I look at the Jeep and I feel like some 16 year old messenger delivering coffee to the big boys. This thing is already paid for, why waste it?"

"*You* feel out of place?" I can see his view of the world shift ever so slightly at that revelation. "Since when do you care what anyone thinks about anything you do, including the car you drive?"

I don't know... since I woke up and looked in the mirror one day and realized I'm 33 years old and no matter how hard I try to stop it, or how many times we fuck, time moves forward and not backwards. You either keep up, or you get left behind, and I don't intend to ever be left behind. "I don't care. I just wanted a car I could respect in the morning." I give him the devil's grin.

"I see. So essentially you give your dirty little secret to your other dirty little secret for safekeeping."

FUCK! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Motherfucking fuck! If I had a fireplace poker handy, I'd melt the iron and then shove it up his ass for that comment.

"That's totally fucked Justin! You know that. I put my ass on the line for you, more than once. Don't fucking act like you're someone I try to hide." I'm so incensed right now a firehose at full throttle wouldn't put me out.

"I'm not saying you *do* hide me. I'm just saying, maybe you should."

I've gone and done it again, without even trying. I've found his total weakness and preyed all over it. "What the *fuck* does that mean?"

"It just means that I'm sure the Jeep's not the only thing you've wanted to trade in when you started feeling awkward. Let's face it, I'm not exactly a shining example of the powerful, respectable image you want to portray. Hell, I can't even pick out my own clothes. Maybe it would just be easier to get it over with sooner rather than later." He pauses, lost inside his own head, pondering how to get himself out of the wildfire that's spun completely out of his hands. "All I ask is that, if you should get the urge to do it, you'll let me know in advance, so I can be prepared before you just cast me aside for some better model."

His whole body is deflated, hands vaguely steering the wheel and shifting the gear, eyes watching the road, but traveling on some stretch of highway only he can see. This is when I should step up to the plate, act like the man I'm supposed to be and tell him what he wants to..., no what he *needs* to hear. That I wouldn't change a damn thing about him, and that I need him to stay exactly as he is because if he keeps molding himself into something I don't recognize, then how the hell can he expect me to keep trying to contort my own framework to follow along with him? Why would I even bother?

"Like you said, since when do I care what anyone else thinks of me? Why would I start now?" I am the coward after all.

"For the same reason you thought getting a Lexus would somehow make you seem more important. You can't stand when people look down on you." He rolls to the red light and gives me the most sincere, open look I've ever seen. "Promise me you won't let me turn into something that embarrasses you down the line. Make sure that I keep trying to make you proud... Please?"

I'm dumbfounded and mortified that things have gotten so twisted around that *he* is the one saying this to *me*. How did we get here? His eyes stare earnestly, waiting for my final judgment before he finds a cool, damp place to roll around in and douse the remaining sparks. Please, once, just once, let the right thing come out of my mouth. "I promise." He breathes a little easier. "But only on one condition."

His shoulders tense up immediately, waiting to feel how I'm going to squeeze them until they're sloped in reverence at my visage, when all my fingers want to do is to ease the knots forming in his muscles. "What's that?"

"That after this party is over and you get your birthday gift tonight, not only do we never have this conversation again, we forget we ever had this conversation to begin with."

I know, I *know* the only gift he wants is for me to be like him, but he'll have to settle for some pale imitation. Even his gifted hands can't bring an old dead horse to life.

"Okay..." He agrees reluctantly, clearly confused by my reaction and expectation of him. But if it gets him back to relative peace, then so be it, he can live with it for a little while.

I watch the streets pass outside my window, afraid that if I look at him too long, it'll all come pouring out of me, and I don't know how to pull back the way he does, once he starts. I just let myself get wholly consumed.

"You handle this thing like a pro, Justin," I compliment him. I know he's smiling, even if I'm not looking. "I think this will all work out really well for both of us, more than I expected it to. Best decision I've made in a while."

"Brian." My head automatically shifts in his direction. "Thanks."

I nod and make mincemeat of my inner lip. He has no idea. None at all.

I just watch him steer us through a steep curve, grateful that I'm not the one doing the driving.

I'm just a passenger along for the ride.


	22. Cinnamon

Whenever there was an emergency contrition to be had, my Aunty Betty used to boil cinnamon sticks and some rancid smelling fixins that she'd never explain. It had something to do with cinnamon being one of the original anointed oils. She never really explained much about that either. It just seemed that whenever I was around there was always an emergency. She said the sky had opened up one night in a rainstorm and divined that she be the oracle, like a substitute teacher for God. No one ever bothered to mention that I shouldn't have been deathly afraid of her until I was much older. Someone finally explained that she was just a crazy old bat who'd been hit by lightning one summer and was never quite the same. If it had been up to her, she would have made me bob for the sticks in the still boiling oil to save my soul. Instead I spent most of my time on my knees doing penance, with this stomach churning smell wafting around my head and stinging red marks from her chunky fingers giving me the sign of the cross on my forehead. If the church wants to blame anyone for me being one of "them thar homosapiens", then blame Aunt Betty. It's her fault I've spent my adult life looking for better ways to land on my knees at any given moment.

It's also her fault that I've got a sixth sense for seeing things that I'm not supposed to see, my own special brand of divining. I don't know how many times she told me my eyes were always looking for things they shouldn't be and that my mouth couldn't wait to catch the rest of the world up about what they saw. Like that one time Clarence was out back with that big haired, short shorted wife of the sheriff. I ran into the house and told her Clarence and Bobby Perkins' wife were making a litter of kittens like Tabby and Rusty did last summer. I was on my knees for three hours straight for that one. Three months later, two gun shots and one ball less for Clarence, Bobby Perkins' wife had suddenly taken ill and needed to recover a few towns away for a little while. She came back during the winter about twenty pounds heavier and looking ten years older from the sadness.

I don't know how I know these things, I just do, and I can't keep myself from saying just the wrong thing.

"You know I haven't seen either of you around Babylon much. Are you keeping the old boy busy?"

That was all I said, I swear. I mean, my God, even Clarence with his one ball and limp dick would have gotten a hard on from the vibe at that table. Was there really any point in denying that one absent Justin plus one absent Brian, multiplied by the complete absence of awkwardness between them, equaled some marathon fucking? Did anyone ever actually believe they would keep their hands off each other for long? It's just obvious. Isn't it? I refuse to believe that I'm the only that feels some kind of carnal connection between them. But then again, it *is* my burden in life to see the greater, natural order of things.

I guess if you have a vested interest in keeping your eyes closed or you just don't care enough to notice, anything is possible. And from the look Michael shot me, it became quickly apparent that he'd run out of contact solution weeks ago. We're all just supposed to continue to act like nothing has changed, and leave the healing to Michael. It didn't really change then, hasn't changed now. Just a few minor glitches in the system. It's been what, six, seven weeks since that night, which I never really thought was such a big deal anyway. So he went off with some sweet little piece, but everyone, especially Michael, acted like he was an abomination. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, is the way I feel about it. After a few visits to the porcelain gods and some sobering sense, I think that's the way most of us felt about it. We all realized that feeling sympathy for Brian is kind of like inviting the devil in for tea and then wondering why your house burned down when you turned your back. Poor Justin should have never put that kettle on the flame.

We just went on with our lives. I guess it was a little easier said than done for some others.

All I know is that if it didn't bother Brian, then I certainly wasn't going to waste my time being bothered by it. But Michael seems convinced that Brian is hiding some inner turmoil. My instincts tell me the only turmoil he's hiding is whether he should jump the diner booth and take Justin right on the table or at least have the dignity to wait until the breakfast rush is finished. See, Michael doesn't really know my powers. He thinks he's the only one who can read Brian, the real, true Brian. It's the shallow parts that he can't see, the ones that are tattooed to his forehead, no deep thinking required. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to explain chemistry. I'm sure he's right in a lot of ways, but not when it comes to those mysterious parts that he's too afraid to see. If he could have read that all along, well then we all wouldn't be sitting here staring at each other, like I'd just told them I have moments to live.

"I've just been busy." Finally, Justin interrupts three sets of eyeballs staring daggers at me. Brian's too busy measuring sugar in a spoon. He's such a child sometimes.

"I'm sure you have," Michael mumbles before replacing the dagger in Justin's direction instead. "Where's my mother, isn't this her shift?" Goodness, you'd think Justin was running around town knocking out old ladies and stealing their purses, from the accusation in Michael's voice.

"She switched with Elaine yesterday, but Elaine's kid got sick this morning so I'm covering."

"My sugar is getting impatient. Where's my coffee?" Brian holds up his spoonful of sugar, shaking it around but somehow not managing to spill any of it. If you're not looking for it, I guess you really could miss a lot, because Justin raises his eyelids from his order pad and looks right at the sugar, parts his lips so slightly, oxygen couldn't squeeze past. Everyone else just stares at him, totally unfazed.

"It's brewing. Learn some patience." If he could, I'm sure Brian would lean over and just shove the spoon in his mouth. Instead, he just smirks. I look around the table at the faces of the suddenly innocent altar boys, Ted with his hands crossed, Ben and his angelic smile, Michael the bad one who's thinking of setting off fireworks under the minister's pulpit or maybe plotting a way to bury Justin's body inconspicuously. He is, after all, Brian's self-appointed helping hand and defender against all things evil. Even his comic book says so. A slight to Brian is a slight to Michael, and Justin is guilty of the biggest slight of all. Having and discarding that mysterious thing that Michael can't read, Brian's heart.

"Honey can I get a cinnamon bun with the butter on the side?" Sometimes my mouth is good for something other than causing little catastrophes wherever I go.

"I'll just have some oatmeal." Teddy hands Justin the menu, and I think for a minute how proud I am to have such a sweet, patient partner-in-waiting. That's one time my eyes just weren't seeing what they should have. Thank goodness they opened up. Now I know I have someplace to go if, God forbid, I turn 35 and I'm still alone. Now is not the time and it probably never will be, but if we're both still unattached, that deal we struck to wind up together on my 35th so we don't end up old spinsters, alone and wrinkled, works just fine for me. He can be a pill but I see what everyone else can't. "You can just put the sugar on the side."

I scowl at him and rethink our arrangement. I mean who does he think he is? Brian? I'd like to see him manage to keep his sugar in a spoon when some blond twink practically licks his lips in anticipation. Sometimes boys are just so dense. It's just so frustrating that the rest of the world wasn't born with as much talent as I have. It's called subject, sweetie... I think. Or is it subtext? Hmmm... In any case, it's apparently up to me to point it out, *yet* again.

"Cinnamon sounds good. I'll take a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese," Ben pipes up. I don't know Ben all that well, but I think he's got an Aunt Betty stashed somewhere in his background. He's probably smarter than all of us put together, but book sense doesn't automatically give you common sense, of which, this group of merry idiots can sometimes be sorely lacking. The quota went up significantly when Ben entered the picture. I like Ben.

"Do you really think you should be eating that on your diet?" If I could give one person my powers for a day, it would be Michael, so he could open his eyes and see what he has and appreciate that, as opposed to wishing and hoping for something more. There is nothing more for *him*. I just wish he could see that, see himself and what he's worth and how much he cares about Ben.

"It's just a bagel, Michael, just a bagel." I used to think Justin had upped the common sense factor, but he must have shaken too much pixie dust out of those angel wings and shoved it up his nose because now he's stuck with my foot in mouth disease. Or probably more like too much of Brian's cock up his ass has rattled his brain. Truth be known, I don't really blame him for it. I'd have lost my own mind a long time ago if I were stuck with Brian. He's done what the rest of the free world couldn't do. He's made Brian Kinney come to him, and not the other way around. If he managed that, then he must have some kind of sense left. I know I'm right, I don't care how much everyone else wants to deny it. Now can he keep him there, and should he, is another story all together.

"I'll have eggs over easy and whole wheat bread. Hold the butter." Well now, that's an interesting development. Brian actually put his mouth in the middle of a Michael and Justin tiff that's just waiting to spill over the table. It's a good thing he ordered that dry cardboard grain it could come in handy. He could use it to mop up the potential blood, or my tears, whichever comes first. I hate seeing the two of them so at odds over every little thing. I understand it, but I still hate it.

"I'll have French toast, hold the attitude." Michael glares, the glare to end all glares. I pray Justin recalls some of his better sense. It's way too early in the morning for a scene, even for the ultimate drama queen.

"Coming right up." Bless the boy. We fall back into our conversation about abs and repetitions like Justin hadn't even been there. It's only when he's right in front of us that the world seems to come to a screeching halt. I watch him stroll away, and I see it in his walk. I see it in the way Brian has leaned so casually against the wall, his best affected pose, but his eyes follow Justin's every move. If you weren't looking for it, you'd think he was just surveying his kingdom. They're both so casual about the whole thing, Justin taking casual confident strides, Brian casually giving his ass a perusal as he moves, dumping his sugar into a napkin and playing table drums with his spoon, talking about some piece of gym equipment he wants to buy for the loft.

I watch Michael, he's lit up from within as he listens to the fascinating words about some hunk of metal, and I look over to Ben with his ever present even smile, trying to explain why it's such a good investment. Michael's face just seems to volley back and forth between his two pillars, so quickly and so often that he doesn't even notice that they're both distracted by something else all together. Brian, he's an easy read even if I'm the only one whose noticed, but I don't know Ben that well. I just know that he seems conflicted, smiling and talking, but watching how Michael laps up Brian's attention. He looks like Bobby Perkins' wife, all hooded eyes and aged features, only he hides it better. Aunt Betty would be so proud, I don't even have the urge to point it out. Okay I do, but I suppress it and wait for my cinnamon bun. When it comes, I'll discreetly rub my fingers around it and then muss with the hair on my forehead. I'll find some boy in the backroom later and work out the kneeling issue.

Brian nudges Michael to move, to clear his way for an exit from the booth. I wonder where he's going. I *know* he's not using the bathroom. Even Brian Kinney's cock has some standards, and there's no way he'd put it anywhere within inches of a stall in the Liberty diner. God only knows what he'd pick up from the urinal. Though, come to think of it, he's probably been in much closer contact with 90% of its patrons bodily fluids than he ever would be, taking a piss in the same bathroom.

"Where are you going?" I'll be sure and add Michael to my prayer list.

"I have to take a leak. Do you want to hold my hand?"

Sweet Jesus, if a big old clue hasn't fallen on all of their heads by now or lightning hasn't struck them from the heavens above, then none of my insight will further the cause. Amazingly, they all seem to just accept this at face value, like it's no big deal, and they don't even bother to watch him make his way to the back of the diner. I'm twitching, I can feel the demon seed forming in my gut, like one of those tent revivals when someone is saved and throws themselves all over the ground in gratitude. I can just feel it rising up.

I swear, it's just going to come out of me, but Ben's stare stops me. He's still smiling, still as calm as ever, but it's like he's been possessed by dear old Aunt Betty. I can just see her warning "you start with your mouth and you're gonna end up with Uncle Clary's belt". She had the fear of God thing down pat. I have to look away from him before I start chanting "I see dead people". Instead I let Teddy tell me all about his website woes as if I haven't heard it fifty times already.

I hear a tiny, shrill little whistle in my ear and I realize Brian is making little sounds between his teeth, announcing his re-arrival. This time Michael just scoots in and lets him sit in his still warm seat. It was too quick for even a messy handjob back there. He couldn't have been gone more than a minute.

"Why are you so happy?" Michael gives him a skeptical look.

Justin returns with Brian's coffee before he can answer. He waves it in front of him before settling his saucer in place, very slowly and very steadily, as Brian watches.

"Told you. Patience is a virtue."

Brian dumps what seems like a pound of sugar in the black liquid, stirs it and sips.

"Just the way I like it."

I look at all of them, and I know, just because I know these things, that they're finally catching on, like a set of dominoes. Ted catches on to me and I look at Ben who's catching on to Michael, who's slowly getting caught on to Brian, who you wouldn't know was totally caught on Justin's face the entire time if you didn't know how hollow his disinterested look seems right now. Justin, well Justin has mastered all sorts of things, Brian's game chief among them. Maybe I was wrong, maybe *Justin* is the smartest of all of us put together. He's just forced the devil to drink coffee... and show his hand.

"Justin sweetie, could I get a cinnamon stick... to stir my coffee?"

I have a feeling someone's gonna need it, somewhere down the line.


	23. Copper

It just sort of happened. My hand just casually caught on the leg of the ballerina figurine and it just sort of landed on the floor and just sort of cracked open. I remember the head rolling into the corner and landing so that it just stared right at me clinging to her life's blood spilled all over the place, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. A ton of pennies to be precise. They easily outnumbered every other coin three to one, covering the floor in a pile of copper with little nicks of silver standing out here and there. No wonder the thing felt so heavy. I think it was Molly's screeching wail at the sound that made my mother bolt to her room and made me bolt under her crib, left to stare down a copper colored treasure trove just out of my reach. Wherever I looked, though, her eyes seemed to follow me. I couldn't escape them. I wasn't one for thinking ahead at that age. I didn't really see the bigger picture, that my innocence would seem much more plausible if I weren't hiding, in plain sight no less. Not only did I not gain a single penny from that excursion, I had to give up whatever was left in my own bank to pay for a new one for Molly. I protested of course. What did a one year old need with all that money? It was all a matter of personal responsibility. That's what my mother called it. Save the money and be responsible. Look out for your sister, that's your brotherly responsibility. And don't hide, just own up to your actions and take responsibility...

I guess I could say this thing we've been doing, here and there... and over there, and there too, had all just sort of happened. I didn't mean to make that first phone call, I was actually trying to dial my mother, but I pressed the wrong speed dial number and felt like a moron when he picked up, so I had to say something. Thankfully I ignored the obvious, though I wanted to scream in his ear "I KNEW IT", or, at the very least, whisper my acknowledgment as faintly as he had. For that, I got a casual offer of a drink at Woody's, just an after work/school stress reliever, if I still needed to talk about the prom sort of thing, and well, one thing just accidentally led to another. That was the first time and the times that followed were just as unintentional. I certainly didn't mean to find him when I came to search for a pair of sneakers that I was sure I'd left behind, though I was sure I'd taken everything when I left. And really, who could predict that we'd both wind up at Babylon in the middle of the week? Well, predict that *I* would wind up at Babylon in the middle of the week. Anyone could predict that Brian would. I know I wasn't responsible for Elaine's kid getting sick and all of them deciding to have breakfast this morning. Not to mention, he was the one who followed me to the back of the diner. I'd like to keep that on record, he was the one who offered, no strings, no attachments, if I wanted to come I could. And come I did, several times in several different ways.

So obviously, I totally didn't mean to wind up on this floor, my ass cheeks sticking to it, staring up at the ceiling with my sweatshirt tucked uncomfortably under my neck and Brian still tucked between my legs. It just sort of happened.

There's one spot in particular above my corner where I work on my computer, where the beam ends and the ceiling begins, that's semi-unfinished because of the placement of the vent. A coil of copper wires sticks out and runs into the vent. I think it's connected to the heating system somehow. All I know is that it always freaks me out a little when I stare up at it for too long, usually when I get frustrated by some piece that's not going well. I always get nervous that if it gets too warm in here, it'll somehow set the copper on fire and that it'll travel down the beam and burn me alive when I'm not looking. Brian always tells me that I'm paranoid, and that I needed to pay more attention in science class and less on drawing the teacher's ass. Copper conducts heat and electricity, it's impenetrable, it doesn't spread flames. He thinks if I'm stupid enough to still be sitting there if a fire of that capacity ever broke out and engulfed a steel beam, then I deserve whatever I get.

I can't say I really disagree with him, which is really frustrating. It's just creepy looking up at it, like a bunch of live wires waiting to come to life, drop from the ceiling and wrap themselves around me like the plant in that weird, old movie with the guy from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I never really understood that movie. It just seemed so over the top.

I much prefer what's wrapped around me at the moment. I wish I could say I feel bad about this, that this is somehow wrong. I mean, I know it is, we are no longer together. So technically we're just using one another, though that doesn't seem quite right. I could, and occasionally still do, get this from Ethan. And he could, and I'm sure quite often does, get this from just about anyone. It's not like we're trading for something that's in limited supply, so we're not really using each other for something we can't get elsewhere, which is usually why a person uses another person. I should know. I do feel bad about Ethan, he has no idea what I do when he's not around, and I don't feel compelled to explain myself. I let him believe whatever he needs to believe. If you want to get literal, I've never actually lied outloud to him. When I talked to him after he found Brian in my apartment, he assumed we had been up all night fucking. I made sure he knew how wrong that was. I don't care how hurt Ethan felt, I wasn't going to let him degrade the fact that Brian had just spent the night because I needed him. It's so hard to explain to people who didn't live through it with me, no matter how much they empathize. I think he understood he'd stepped over some line by assuming the worst of me, because he apologized profusely for ever doubting me. I just failed to mention what happened *after* he had left. He hasn't assumed anything since, so I haven't had to explain anything else, so I haven't lied.

I just haven't said everything I should have.

If they both only knew the bonds they share, they'd probably decide I wasn't worth the aggravation and just toss me overboard. They'd probably be justified.

I just can't help it. I've tried to be rational and really think this thing through before I started taking gigantic leaps into oblivion like I've done so many times before. But when he gives me that covert look, that blocks out the rest of the world and sucks dry my ability to remember why it's such a bad idea, I start to feel like he's coiled around my nervous system. His grip just keeps getting tighter the more I try to process things, and my stomach just starts flipping trying to extricate itself. I'm at a loss for words, and I'm almost never at a loss for words. We don't talk much when we do this, which makes me surprisingly grateful. I know it makes him supremely grateful. I have a feeling if we really sat and thought about this, we'd both realize what a huge mistake we're making. I can't risk that, I just can't. I'm not prepared for that. There I admitted it, I'm not prepared to figure out how to live my life without Brian in it in some capacity, and I probably never was. I saw a problem, and I dealt with it by diving into someone else's bed and trying to do it as quietly as possible.

Now I'm doing all sorts of things I would never do otherwise. After all, I did walk out almost two months ago for reasons that haven't really changed, but which I think I'm slowly starting to process in a way I couldn't then. I can't really have it both ways. Like, I can't want Brian to stay silent when I feel like it, when it makes it easy on me and gets me what I want, and then turn around and need him to talk when I decide I'm ready to hear something other than his moaning. That's not fair to him. But he hasn't been fair to me either. He can't be in a relationship and then turn around and act like he's never even heard of the concept much less practiced it.

He can't tell me he loves me and then turn around and act like it never even happened, like it was nothing.

It was everything.

And I let it pass. I'd be the ugliest of the ugly if I rubbed it in his face out of nowhere, so now he'll never know how much it meant to me. But I'll expect him to and that's not very fair either.

I can't even count the ways I've been unfair to Ethan. I don't have enough fingers or toes or time in the day.

But none of this seems wrong. It doesn't seem right somehow, but it doesn't feel wrong, and that probably makes it more wrong than it ever would have been otherwise. It's almost as if I've had some psychotic break and lost anything remotely resembling a conscience. I've just closed my eyes and followed the bad penny wherever it decided to show up. I could have a pocketful of pennies and I'd still choose the same one over and over, I just know it. It might get all green like most old pennies eventually do if you're not a coin collector and don't know how to keep it in mint condition, but I'll save it because the older it gets the more valuable it becomes. Shiny new pennies are nice for a minute or two, but eventually they're going to get old along with the rest. Maybe one day there will be no other pennies at all. I think I read that once, that the government was thinking about phasing out the penny as part of the currency. So I'll take the already aged, but in good shape penny and hold onto it for life.

Now I *know* I've had a psychotic break. It's the fucking copper wires, they do something to my psyche. Make me have paranoid delusions. I have to stop thinking about these things and start opening up my eyes and really looking around. I can't do this again. I *cannot* do this again... all of this, just the whole thing. I haven't made a single decision I could be proud of in the last three or four months. Everyone thinks I should be proud of walking out, of getting my own place, of doing well in school and finding someone my own age, when all I feel is foolish. A man would have stood up for himself, would have stopped hiding behind silence, would stop trying to justify his every action as a reaction. A man would take responsibility for himself.

"How many times have I told you to stop staring at that fucking ceiling?"

Jesus fucking Christ. His voice just went through my spine into my heart valves and squeezed them all closed. I think I'll breathe normally again after a strong sedative.

"I thought you were sleeping! I think I just had a heart attack and my life just flashed right in front of my eyes."

"Must have been a really shitty movie. I'd get my money back if I were you." He rolls onto his sweat slicked back and it makes me entirely too happy to know that I won't be the only one painfully peeling off my body parts from this hot floor. Just a few more feet and we would have made it to the bed. We could still get there eventually. Right, psychotic break I've since moved past, pay no attention to myself. Check.

"What the fuck are we doing Brian?" Mate.

"Well, given that you're staring at the ceiling thinking about how the whole place will ignite in flames in minutes because of a few loose wires, I imagine you're having your firefighter fantasy again. And I'm wondering what time of day it is. It was light out when we started wasn't it? Does that answer your question?"

You can bend copper pretty easily can't you? In place of barbed wire, it'd do in a jiffy to wrap around his neck. I'm so tired of these conversations that just go round and round in circles. I ask something, he doesn't answer. I say nothing, he says nothing. I talk endlessly, he pretends like he's not even listening, when I know he must be hearing every word. I won't look at him, because I know if I do I won't have to worry about wires coming to life and tying me up in knots, he'll have taken care of that. 

I lean up, slowly, feeling the sting of my back as it leaves the floor. "That's so fucking typical Brian. You know you've become one of those drones you can't stand, right? Just repeating yourself over and over. It's time to recycle your routine. Can't you just answer the question without being an asshole about it?" He's just so fucking aggravating, and if my limbs weren't all so sore right now, I'd have already been up and dressed and headed for the door.

He says nothing for a few long seconds, as if he's actually considering answering with a thoughtful answer. "No." I shake my head, and I can feel my shoulders slumping. I want to say something, but I don't. I want him to get it, just once, without me having to point it out. He says nothing. Like I said, typical.

"I guess nothing has really changed. Nothing ever will."

"You thought because we've fucked a few times that something would be different?"

So nice of you to leave out what we did in between the fucking, how predicable. If he can do it, then why can't I? Tell the truth, no holds barred. "Yes that's exactly what I thought." I turn my head over my shoulder and look at him, suppress the feeling starting in my stomach. "I won't make the same mistake again."

"Neither will I." He holds my stare, gives me that fucking look. That *fucking* look.

I hear a muffled ringing sound somewhere behind me and realize it's my sweatshirt ringing. I dig my phone out, can't make out the caller, it's too dark to see. He watches with disinterest as I pick up.

"Hello?" I practically bite my tongue out of my mouth as I hear Ethan's voice on the other end, wondering where I am. I'm home, I tell him. Not possible, he was just there five minutes ago looking for me. I try to remember if I heard the buzzer ring, but I don't think I did. Oh... oh, he didn't mean...oh, that's bad...that's just bad. I close my eyes as if it's somehow going to make it better if I can't see the words come out of my mouth. I've been home all night, no really I have. I must have been occupied. See, it's not lying if you don't expand on the truth. I am a terrible excuse for a human being. He asks me something, but I don't hear it because I'm too busy getting distracted by Brian wincing as he pulls himself onto his feet. Good, I'm glad it hurt. He marches over to the refrigerator and grabs a beer. I have absolutely no idea if Ethan is still on the other end, but I hurry him off the phone with lame promises to check in with him tomorrow.

I shut the phone off and stand to dress.

"You want things to be different?" I look in his direction, surprised at the sound of his voice and the fact that he's still speaking to me. Somehow his eyes never leave me, even when his back is turned to me and he won't let me see his face until he's good and ready, and he wants me to always remember that. "Not a fucking thing will ever change as long as *that* keeps happening. You want me to respect you like a man worthy of an answer, then act like one."

It's like he's kicked my legs out from under me. I see beads of sweat where we both lay on the floor, see us spilled all over the place, in between where my legs had held him steady, at my feet in the spot where he'd stood up, in the condom I avoid stepping on. See the mess we've both made. The mess we've let happen, while we were so busy being focused on silly details that never really mattered. That coiled feeling begins to unravel into relief as he finally turns to face me, waiting. It's not that I'm naked that makes me feel exposed, it's the way he can see right through me. I turn my phone on and return his look hoping he sees the purpose and conviction written there. I squint in the dark at the soft neon green, and search for Ethan's number. I finally find it, dial it and tell him to meet me at my apartment in an hour. There's something we need to talk about.

I see it, all of it, so clearly. I needed to see with my own two eyes how carelessness will always keep what I want just out of reach. I see myself marked on every inch of his life, his body, his floor, his corners. I see the boy that knew what it took to get to get what he wanted, determination and sheer willpower. It's time for the man to stand up and do it better, do it with focus. I've done it once, I'll do it again. I won't hide from it anymore. I won't hide him, and I won't let him hide himself.

Only this time it'll be on my terms, because if I left it up to him we'd never get further than the floor.


	24. Scarlet Rapture

His cheeks glow with the same scarlet red that covered Jacob's stomach. My mother, running out the door with me in hand on the way to one of my competitions, diagnosed it as a heat rash and proclaimed him fit as a fiddle. Ironic. It's not hot enough for a similar diagnosis for Justin. He's embarrassed, or worse yet, he's flushed. Either way I know now that I should have postponed the inevitable and given him a night to think it over. I'm not a stupid guy. I know that words that can't be said in a telephone call, that demand my presence in person, are words that are bound to hurt me. At least he has the decency to look ashamed at having to be the one to broker the deal. The one that puts me on the losing end.

I might not be stupid, but I'm not a terribly observant person by nature. I notice enough to get me by. I just don't have the time to look for all the little details. There are always new pieces to write, old ones to learn, music to be made. I could fill up all the hours of my day dissecting the B flat from high C over A, notes that mean nothing to the untrained ear and never notice that dawn is breaking on a new day, right outside my window, and I've just missed the last day altogether. My mother calls it "the rapture" and she's convinced the rest of the world will get lost in it with me one day. Today is obviously not that day, and Justin is obviously not ready. Even I would notice that from one look.

It's so strange how much his skin glows with that same spooky red color, I've long since tried to forget, the longer he speaks. I think my mother thought it was another in a long line of Jacob's cries for attention. He seemed to always be able to distress himself enough to cause some ailment that he wouldn't have had otherwise. He'd cry until his throat was hoarse, or eat two times more spaghetti than he should and complain of stomach pains. It was an incredibly difficult strain on her resources to have one gifted child and one whose gift seemed to be finding ways to try and distract her from it. I require a lot of attention and I don't apologize for that. You don't craft genius by giving it a half-assed attempt, and my mother understands that. She just can't support me in the same way she used to, with such concentrated devotion, and I understand why. So I have to look around for it, for someone else who will jump head first, no questions, into the rapture with me. I think I'd managed to convince myself that that was Justin. After all, who better to understand art when he sees or hears it, than him?

But my inability to notice things until they're staring me in the face has always gotten me into trouble.

"Ethan?" I hadn't noticed he'd stopped speaking. I didn't really hear much after the first "I'm sorry". The specific words don't really matter in the end, do they? They all say the same thing and leave us at the same point.

"Just tell me that you haven't been lying this whole time. That the two of you haven't..." I don't know why it's important to me to know this. It's just the thought that I've been made a fool of, and I didn't even know it, that runs a chill up my spine. I can picture him sitting there and mocking me and Justin laughing with him.

His cheeks are stained with permanent blotches and I realize that I was right, the trip over here wasn't worth the effort it took to make it. I try to count the number of missing nights I can't account for, or the amount of times he'd look anywhere but at me, when he was telling me about his day. They all blend into one long lie and I realize it's not that I don't notice things, it's that I don't want to.

I never really noticed much about Jacob, other than the fact that we were related and stuck with one another. You couldn't have designed two more opposite personalities if you tried. The fact that we're so close in age only added to the strain, gave him more reason to try and stand out. I couldn't even give him a few years on his own with my parents, I had to rush out eleven months later and steal all his thunder. I never really felt like the younger brother though, and no one ever treated me like I was. Actually I think most people seemed to forget. He was always just so immature about things, and a little sickly on top of all the medical mysteries he managed to give himself. That always made him seem weaker somehow, in body and mind. His throat was always sore, or he was always slightly feverish. It was like his body was just a vacuum for germs. So why would anyone pay attention to a little scarlet rash and a little fever? There were competitions to be had and music to be made. It was when he started to lose his hearing that I finally noticed. He would always complain that I played too loud and too often and I'd brush him off, because what could Jacob possibly know about anything. I don't know how long it took me to notice that he would be sitting in a room while I'd be playing full throttle, and he wouldn't even turn his back. I sometimes wonder if it was mind over matter, his one guarantee for attention. After all, if he could no longer hear the music I made, maybe we'd finally start to hear him.

I get the same sense from Justin the longer he stands there, mouth agape. If he can just find a way to fit all the pieces together, then his mind will conquer his heart and he can convince himself that this is just something he needed to do without having to feel any guilt or shame. It's like he's searching for just the right way to escape the need to have this conversation, escape the possibility that he's doing the wrong thing. Justin is totally caught up in the rapture, only it's not mine, and he wants me to give him the okay to just let go. Well if that's what he wants... Never let it be said that I'm not attentive to people's needs.

"You have to understand something, Ethan." No. I really don't. "The whole thing with Brian is just... complicated. It doesn't seem to end, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere either. We just keep going in circles."

"So you did lie and you have been fucking him?" That *is* what he's saying without having to come right out and say it, isn't it? If he won't admit it, then I'll be the noble one and admit it for him. I'll give him every reason in the world to let go. I can't even believe the kind of drama my life has come to. I don't have time for this kind of nonsense. He can have all the half unspoken conversations he wants with Brian. They can just communicate like two chimpanzees using sign language for the rest of their lives. I can even teach them the basics. I never did learn all the intricacies. It's a pity that neither of them really know what fools they are, what kind of gift they have in simply being able to speak and listen.

"Why do I get the feeling that you think that's all it's ever been about with Brian?"

I must admit, his ability to totally avoid a subject and turn it around on me is nothing short of brilliant. "Because that's pretty much all it comes down to. There's not a thing you've said or done, in all the time I've known you that's made me think otherwise. He's great in bed, you just can't get it together outside of that, isn't that what you told me? Well guess what," the scarlet drains from his face, leaving it a pale, pasty white "not a single fucking thing has changed. He's still an asshole and you're still wandering in circles trying to figure out how your tongue keeps getting stuck there."

The rapture is the most natural state of being. It's this ecstatic high that you can't put into words or rationalize. It's just these moments that transport you to some other level. You're no longer thinking, or even feeling. You're on some level so far and above the simple human ability to feel things that it's almost transcendent. Every one of your senses just whirls together in some frenzy that makes total sense, even amongst the chaos. Sometimes the sweat just trickles down your spine because you've worked yourself into such a feverish pitch. The only thing that exists in the rapture are those moments, nothing before you, nothing beyond you, just that very minute. I've been sucked into the vortex so many times, playing until my fingers were raw. I'd play note after note, hoping Jacob would do nothing more than blink in response. Somewhere along the way I'd get lost though, and I wouldn't even notice if he had. Because the rapture just sweeps you away, it's a force you don't control, it controls you. I wonder sometimes if Jacob propelled himself into some kind of rapture, worked himself into such a frenzy that he opened up his body for some kind of intrusion. Maybe there was a way it all could have been prevented.

I know now that Justin never really closed himself off from his rapture, he just learned how to tame it for longer periods of time. Something I have never figured out how to do, something it's too late for Jacob to figure out.

But in the long run Justin's just as powerless to control it as I am.

Despite his insistence and all his rationalization, that's all it really comes down to. How two people, who can't explain it otherwise, make sense of basic human nature. The talking and explaining comes afterwards.

Compulsion drives the rapture. It's the capitulation that keeps it running.

"You know, I wasn't really sure I wanted to have this conversation with you. Now I'm really glad I did. Thanks for thinking so little of me." He doesn't even have the decency to pretend like this is something he shouldn't have done. There will be no need for scarlet A's to sew on his chest, in shame. He just regards it as the most natural course of action and expects me to understand.

Only I do. I don't want to, but I do.

"I should have just followed my instinct the first time you came crawling back to me. That'll teach me to stop picking the trash up off the street. I have a bad habit of doing that, you know? You just never know what you're gonna wind up with." He's into bastards isn't he? If that's what he wants, if that's what gets him off... if that's what lets him let go, then so be it.

This aggravates me. I don't capitulate for anyone. If I'm going to take the time to notice you, it's because you were damned well worthy of that time. I don't like feeling like I've made the biggest mistake I could make, wasting my time on frivolous people. Yet I do it, over and over. I'm aggravated because I'm fucking jealous. Not of Brian, not of Justin, but of Brian and Justin, that thing you become when you get so caught up in one person that you can't separate out who you are from who he is, and you realize that's really not such a bad thing in the long run.

I've never had that with anyone. I feel like, if I did, I could stop worrying about all of this other trivial bullshit and just focus on what I do best. I could give all my concentration to the thing that needs it most, my music. I just keep putting myself on the line for all these people who don't reciprocate. There's always something that holds them back. It's only when they're gone, that I realize they were never as caught up in the moment as I was.

Jacob could never get as caught up in things as mom and I could, even when he could hear the music float around the house. He'd tuned me out long before he could no longer hear. He tried so hard to get everyone caught up in him, in his disease of the week, cried wolf at the top of his lungs. So hard that we didn't see the real, true wolf circle and attack, when he finally showed up on our doorstep, drenched in a scarlet rash. He got what he wanted, he never had to hear me again. There are nights that I play for hours and hours at a time, trying so hard to capture him, even if he's hundreds of miles away, hoping my notes can carry that far. I would never play another note again, if it meant giving him back what I took away.

I hate that Justin has had the notes in him all along and he hasn't got a clue what to do with them. I fucking hate Brian for constantly changing the tempo and forcing him to keep up. I really, really hate them together because I haven't written a single piece that has as much rhythm as they do even when they're tripping over themselves. I hate that I can hold a single note for five minutes on my violin, but I can't hold a relationship together for ten. Something always has to give... someone, usually me.

"I don't have to justify a fucking thing to you." No. You really don't. "I know what we have." He's gone from impassive to a slow burning anger. "It just took me some time to figure it out."

"And I was just the right distraction while you wasted your time 'figuring it out'. At least the sex was good, if nothing else." I can't help it. I'm trying to do the right thing and make this easy, but part of me still hopes he feels as stupid and used as I do.

He looks defiant and I can see the wave of rapture pulling him under. "Yeah it was. We almost warped the floor with our sweat this afternoon. Oh, I'm sorry, you meant the two of us." Gone are the brief moments of sincere apology. Just like I thought, instinct will always win out over reason. Brian should be on his knees thanking me for that.

I could have written him a thousand symphonies and the only thing he would have heard were faraway sounds of waves crashing in his ear.

"The two of you are so fucked up beyond reason, I hope you realize that one day. I should be the one thanking you, because I'm *so* glad I won't have to be in the middle of this shit anymore."

"You're not the only one who's glad." I have officially been rationed right out of his head.

I take that as my cue, thankful that there's at least a trace of regret on his face for things winding up this way.

We all say and do things that we regret in hindsight. We wish there were ways to change the course of events, take back things we didn't mean to say or feelings we didn't mean to have. We work feverishly in the present to make up for the past, never realizing that nothing we could say or do will ever replace those moments. We only create new ones, hoping it somehow lessens the memory of the old ones. We ride the rapture until it crests and falls. It's just a matter of being able to continually get back up and do it all over again.

This is a good thing for both of us and he's finally ready to admit it.

After all, there are lives to be led, love to be had and there's always... *always* music to be made.


	25. Cream

It's coming up on my four year anniversary working for Brian. That first day was a disaster from start to finish. Even then, when he was just a young, eager up-and-comer he was an arrogant shithead, who didn't like to share. I remember bringing him a cup of coffee that morning, two sugars and one of those little containers of cream. You would have thought I peed in the fucking cup from his reaction. "Don't *ever* put cream in my coffee again." I guess he thought he was intimidating, showing me what a big man he was, with a big desk and big demands. I acted contrite and rolled my eyes as soon as I turned my back to leave his office. I'm pretty sure he caught me because he watched me like a hawk the rest of the day. He must have gone through five different assistants in his previous three years here. I'd avoided him like the plague, because I already had enough of a headache working for two totally incompetent account execs, Brad and Bob. I did all their cleanup work and took home half the pay, why would I want to add an absolute prick to my roster for good measure?

It was an emergency deal, I was never supposed to work for him. He'd finally found an assistant, Lisa, that he hadn't made cry or develop an addiction to over the counter pain relievers. The fact that she was pregnant the entire time she worked for him worked to her advantage. Even Brian has his limits when it comes to picking on people. Probably the first sign that he has a heart somewhere in there. So when she went into early labor sitting at her desk one afternoon and they told me I would have to cover His Nastiness until they could hire someone new because no one wanted the unenviable task of dealing with him, I sucked it up and secretly wished Lisa one of those births that take three days. My boyfriend at the time, some guy in human resources, got an earful about it. Even *he* didn't envy me. But it was only for a couple of weeks, until they could find someone else. A couple of weeks that have somehow turned into four years.

Anyway, that morning started off on the wrong foot with the coffee and the cream and just got progressively worse. Brian sat in an office a few doors down from Bob and Brad. They stick all junior execs in shared offices and they all share assistants. They all started at the same time, but Brian never shared an office or an assistant with anyone. I sat near Bob and Brad so I could be at their beck and call, only they never learned the becking or the calling. I think I intimidated them, they didn't know what to do with an assistant. Mostly I sat there so I could make sure they didn't have nervous breakdowns and start chewing paper. I'd heard Brian in there yelling on way too many occasions. I never looked up when he'd walk out, pretending like I was deaf, dumb and blind. It gets you pretty far in life. So that morning I'm sitting at my desk totally rearranging a presentation for some huge account, and Brian is yelling from his office that he needs to get someone on the line and "his fucking phone won't dial". He's screaming my name, like I really *am* deaf, and before I can even put the storyboard down, he's storming out of his office looking at the empty desk in front of him like I'm going to magically appear. When he sees me approaching, he starts with his attitude again. Why am I sitting over there, why won't his phone dial, why should he have to come out there looking for me, and on and on he went. He demanded I move my ass to where he could see me, never mind the fact that I did have other work to do that required being at my own desk. What Brian wants, Brian gets. I told him if he continued with that tone, the next time he'd see my ass moving would be when it walked straight past him and to the head of human resources to file a formal complaint. He almost cracked a smile. Almost.

I left Bob and Brad in the lurch that day, and they had to scramble to put together their presentation on their own. What a disaster that turned out to be. But Brian had phone problems and that was enough for Brian to take precedence in the world according to His Nastiness. My ass did move, begrudgingly to the desk in front of him, and I listened to him yell at me all day about everything I was doing wrong. I didn't open the right pieces of mail, I didn't know where his files were, I didn't know how he liked his fucking coffee. I knew nothing about his accounts. I should have walked right in, in the middle of the meeting with Ryder, when I had the guy from AllSport's on the phone. Nag, nag, whine, whine, whine. I just put on my best fake smile and reminded myself that it would only be for a couple of weeks.

So, 5:00 rolls around and I'm taking my tired ass and pounding headache and I'm going home. He comes out in a huff and wants to know where I'm going. "Home", I tell him. He slaps both his hands on the desk, something I'd seen him do with Lisa a ton of times, but I'm deaf, dumb and blind, so of course I never really saw it, his tricks were all new to me. Yeah, right. He demands that I stay and help him with the "fucking account Ryder just threw in my lap, because Bob and Brad don't know the difference between shit and even more shit." So I slapped the desk back, and that got his attention. Lisa always looked the other way, and I guess he expected me to as well, since I'd never given him any attention before. I think I must have startled him because he actually shutup for the first time that day, and there was that faint hint of a smile again.

We laid the ground rules down that day. If I was going to work for him even for two weeks, then he'd have to learn a little respect if he wanted something. I stayed with him until almost midnight and told him the ideas I'd originally given Bob and Brad to help enhance their presentation, the same ideas they had pointedly ignored. He actually picked up on one of them and reworked it in his own inimitable Brian way. It was the first time I'd ever felt like someone respected my ideas, and respected the hard work I was putting in. I came in the next day and there were a dozen roses in a vase on the desk, no card.

Now, here it is four years later, and every Monday there's a dozen roses on my desk without fail. I never left that desk after that disastrous first day, and a week later I no longer worked for Brad and Bob. My new title was "Executive Account Assistant", which somehow entitled me to a nice, hefty raise. I still use my deaf, dumb and blind approach, only Brian doesn't really think I am, the way Brad and Bob did. He knows better. He just appreciates the fact that I pretend I am, when I have to, in order to deal with him. I know his accounts like the back of my hand. I know all his quirks, and I know just how to deal with him and his pissy attitude. I wouldn't put up with him if I didn't think he respected me and if I didn't know there was a generous, kind man lurking around somewhere in there. We even laugh, which is something he rarely does with anyone at work.

Mostly, I minimize the amount of bullshit he has to deal with. He knows that whatever winds up on his desk, or on the phone, filters through me. He doesn't have to know all the nitty gritty details of who fucked up what account, or what reservations aren't available. All he knows is that things run smoothly and he can focus on what he does best, and he is definitely the best.

In four years of working for him and answering his phone, keeping track of all of his appointments, ordering gifts to send to people, hearing bits and pieces of conversations here and there and the stuff he lets slip when we're around working late at night and he's tired, I've got a pretty good idea what his life is like. I know what personal stuff he wants to deal with at work. Like when Michael calls, I always put him through, unless Brian is really overwhelmed. When Lindsay calls, I have to take his temperature and see what kind of mood he's in. Thank goodness they invented voicemail, I don't feel nearly as guilty putting someone off now.

So when Justin started calling, it took me a while to figure out his place on the scale of bullshit Brian didn't want to deal with. The first time I told him there was a Justin Taylor on the line for him I thought he'd pop a blood vessel. Over the months, the calls just kept coming. Not a lot of them, but consistently enough that you could almost mark the progression of the relationship based on Brian's response. This was also the first time anyone, outside of his small inner circle, had started to call on a regular basis. I always knew Brian was gay, I don't even remember how or when I found out, it was just something I knew, something everyone knew. I knew it as well as I knew that he never got personal calls from anyone who wasn't a friend. I can't say I know Justin well now, it's not like he calls every day, maybe once or twice a week, but I know when he does, Brian always takes the call. He didn't at first, but he does now. I actually interrupted meetings with Ryder to put calls through. I don't use his first name when relaying messages, he's always "Mr. Taylor". It makes him sound more official. I haven't had to interrupt him with Vance yet. I noticed that Justin had stopped calling after that party I had to organize behind Vance's back. That's one of the perks of being partner, using the firms resources and not having to explain the expense.

Now that was a big deal. He sat me down and explained what he wanted and what he was promoting, and asked for my strictest confidence. No gossiping over the watercooler, to keep Vance from finding out. Well there was that, and there was the obvious. No gossiping about him. I'd never heard him explain this much about his life in one sitting. Not that he came out and told me, but deaf, dumb and blind me put two and two together and kept my mouth shut. Then the phone calls stopped. Brian became crabby and worked hours upon hours, blaming it on all the extra responsibility he has as partner. Which is true, but half the time he can't wipe his ass without me holding the toilet paper, so I know what his responsibilities really are. He wasn't even this eager when he was out to impress people as a junior exec.

Then a couple of weeks ago, the first call came through again. He seemed kind of reluctant to answer, but he went back into his office, closed the door, and was on the phone for a good ten minutes. He's called Brian twice since then, the calls taking a little longer each time. Imagine my surprise when he called to speak to me and not to Brian. He wanted the exact address of the firm and didn't want to bother Brian in the middle of a heavy workday to ask for it.

Now I know why. I've seen tons of invitations for black tie events that people want Brian to attend. They all start to look the same after a while. A cream colored piece of bond paper with black or gold lettering and a raised border. It's all very fancy and official. I throw most of them away. Brian's not really the social type. So when I get this invitation postmarked from the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts, I almost throw it away, until I remember dealing with that bitch in the bursar's office, trying to pay Justin's tuition.

It's a really beautiful invitation, same old cream colored bond paper. But there's this detailing on the border in pencil, like someone has drawn it by hand, and the calligraphy is handwritten. I know this is a one of a kind invitation, something Justin has created. It's an invitation to a showing that PIFA is organizing at some small gallery downtown. I know Brian is going to chew me out for bothering him with invitations, but I also know he'd probably fire me for not mentioning this one. I'll just pretend like I accidentally got it mixed in with the rest of his mail when I hand it to him.

I take his coffee, black, no fucking cream and a ton of sugar and the mail and make my way into his office. He's stressing about the Brown Tech Limited account. I don't even know what semiconductors do, I haven't been able to come up with a single suggestion to help him out. He's got a couple of weeks to work it out, and I'm sure he'll pull some miracle out of his ass like he always does. The invitation is right on top and I throw it on the desk like it's no big deal, hand him his coffee and start cleaning out his outbox. When he can't be bothered to leave his office or he's just too busy, that's where he leaves his work. I watch him, pretending to read some memo he wants me to type. His handwriting is for shit, so it doesn't seem like a big deal for me to stand there and puzzle it out. He doesn't notice the invitation at first, hell he doesn't even notice me. When he finally spots it, he gives it a quick glance, his mouth getting ready to ream me out, until he starts reading it and the realization of what it is sets in. He studies it for a good long minute, then turns his chair to the second phone in back of him. I can only see his profile from here. I continue rustling some papers and pretend to be totally immersed in his work in case he decides to remember to realize I haven't left.

I hear Justin's voice on the other end, answering with a groggy "Hello". Brian has him on speakerphone. He always does that when he wants to seem like someone is interrupting his precious time because he knows everyone hates having to talk to someone who can't even be bothered to pick up the receiver.

"It's 10:00 and you're still sleeping?" His voice is gruff, but his face isn't. I can see how not bothered he really is.

"Fuck off. I was up half the night trying to finish a piece for my final."

"I knew you wouldn't last in 8:30 classes. That's why there are so many first quarter freshman in those classes, they don't know better."

"Is there something you wanted?" I'm used to Justin being as nice as can be on the phone with me. It's a pleasant surprise to hear someone else who doesn't take Brian's attitude lying down.

"You tell me. What's the invitation about?" I can hear sounds from Justin's end, like he's just bolted upright out of bed.

"It's exactly what it says. My life drawing professor is putting up some of our stuff. I thought you'd like to see yourself hanging on a gallery wall."

"Why would I want to do that?" Oh, *please*. Why does a dog lick its own balls? Because he can, and so would Brian if he could. I almost laugh. Brian as cocktease. The world has officially ground to a halt.

"I've never known you to turn down an invitation to bask in the glow of yourself. Something told me you wouldn't want to miss the opportunity." I feel guilty standing here listening to this, but sadly, this is the most entertainment I've had in weeks.

"I can just look in the mirror in that case. Why should I waste a perfectly good Saturday night at some boring function with a bunch of 18 year olds trying to explain why a portrait is the abstract expression of all of their torturous teenage angst?" I regret ever having given him the invitation.

"Because I'm asking you to be there." He puts it so simply that Brian almost winces at the phone. "If you don't want to go, that's fine. Just tell me so, and I won't waste my time asking again." I can almost picture the look on his face. I might have to put up with Brian all day, but I don't have to be in love with him. I really don't know how he does it.

"I can't make it. I already have other plans." He actually seems softer somehow, like he might actually regret being so full of himself for once in his life. Well, at least it's not an admission that he doesn't want to be there. Small comfort to Justin, I'm sure.

"Oh. I didn't realize..." Ouch. I actually feel a little pang of sympathy in my chest for the poor boy.

"I told Michael we'd do something together. We haven't had much time to see each other since I made partner. You know, you should be proud of me. You didn't even have to prod me into asking him." Somehow, I don't think that's gonna make him feel better at all.

"I've always been proud of you Brian. That's why you're the one hanging on the wall." I'm sure it's no longer sleep making his voice so heavy. "If you can't make it... you can't make it. I just thought I'd ask. Have fun with Michael. I'll catch up with you next week." It's like he can't get off the phone fast enough.

"Later." He just dismisses him. Brian, Brian, Brian, how someone so smart can be so stupid...

"Later."

He presses the release button and leans back in his chair, the same almost smile I saw that first morning resting in the shadows of his cheeks. He looks surprised to see me still standing there. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was almost embarrassed, but nothing embarrasses Brian. He is beyond embarrassment. I fucking hate that about him.

"You should go, you know. He really wants you there." I scurry quickly to the door after that. I know His Nastiness is about to become His Vileness.

"Shut the fuck up and get me a decent cup of coffee. Not that shit you make." I look at him and blatantly roll my eyes. He seems amused, even his demand wasn't nasty. More pissy affection than anything.

I close the door behind me and I think it must be true what they say. Eventually the cream will *always* rise to the top.


	26. Amber

"This is your idea of hanging out?"

"I never said what we would do, just that we'd do *something* together."

"And out of the thousands of better things we could be doing, you thought walking around staring at art all night was the best choice? Besides, this looks like a private party. I don't think we're even supposed to be here."

"I have an invitation and an obligation to show up. Go get some culture, Mikey. Or one of the little cheesepuffs they're handing out, whichever you stumble on first."

"God, this place is depressing."

I hear him muttering to himself as he wanders off in search of the first cheesepuff. He's right, it is kind of depressing in here, but I prefer to think of it as mood lighting. The overhead lights are fairly dim and cast strange shadows across the walls. It's the soft amber spotlights on the individual pieces that catch my eye. I can't figure out the origin of the light source. It's like they're lit from within and glowing outward. It serves it's purpose because I find my eyes being drawn to the walls and not the patrons. I can see the effect they're going for. Emphasize the art and not the artist.

I walk past a small gathering of awkward teenagers just beginning to think they're the first rebels that ever lived. One has more piercings on his face than I have holes in my body. I'm suddenly grateful that you can't see Justin's one piercing. One is more than enough. Then there's the whitest of white girls with long unkempt dreadlocks and an oversized t-shirt over what looks like three layers of pants, skirt and some unidentifiable fringe shawl thing with the requisite Doc Martens. I kind of feel like telling her to take off all that shit and take a bath. She will one day, may as well get it over with now. The third one has that air of obnoxious arrogance. As if he knows he's the best and doesn't need anyone to tell him otherwise. I swear he's wearing pants that are big enough to fit three of him.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. This is a young crowd, not my thing. They probably consider me middle aged. There are a few professor types crawling around and maybe a couple sets of parents, like they're chaperoning a school dance. My stomach flips. Bad example. I spot a few people nearer my own generation. They're probably graduates checking out their alma matter's work, or maybe a couple of them own galleries. They actually seem interested in the stuff they're looking at. I can't tell if that's genuine or not. The crowd doesn't appear to bother them. They've perfected the look of indifference. They're not here to meet the people responsible for the work, just to see who's nipping at their heels.

It's all portraits hanging on the walls, some better than others. Despite myself, I start to wonder who the people are that are staring back at me from the walls. I wonder if anyone else thinks the same thing when they look at my portrait on the wall. Wonder what they see.

Finally, I find him. He's standing around with his hands in the pockets of his khakis surveying the sea of people that wander past him. Some stop and look at his work, some just keep going. But he stays still, like he's waiting for something or someone to engage him. He has to work on selling himself. He'll never sell a piece if he can't do that. I'm kind of relieved that he's not swarmed with people, or worse, some pierced, dirty and obviously color blind type filling his head with "revolutionary" ideas. The same ideas we all start off with when we're young, eager and stupid. Let's conquer the world. Use a paintbrush, an advertisement, a political cause, it's all the same shit.

I watch him for a minute. I'm hesitant to just approach him from the shadows. I don't want him to get the wrong idea, though I'm not really sure what the wrong idea is or what other idea he could possibly get. I've shown up. There's not much room for interpreting that as a casual move. I wait until he's turned his back to me. I can work with the element of surprise.

"I'm the best looking thing in this place, two dimensional or otherwise." I glance around at the series of portraits staring back at me. My face isn't all that clear in most of them. I might not even know it was me if I didn't know I was the subject. In a couple of them, I'm turned to the side, one is over the shoulder, one is of the back of my head. I wonder when he drew these. They must be snapshots he's taken in his head because I've never sat for him. He has this scary ability to zero in and memorize every part of me. I scan the series more quickly and then I realize that it moves when I look in succession. I start off with a blank expression, my eyes closed and it's me turned at every angle, until I've spun around entirely and wind up with a blank look staring at something I can't see. It's like a dance and every step takes you closer to revealing my face, eyes wide open. The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.

"I thought you couldn't make it." He can't suppress his smile. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid.

"We went for some Thai food down the block. I figured I'd stop by since I was already in the neighborhood." I shrug my shoulders as casually as I can. The fucking place gives new meaning to hole in the wall. I think I drove past it three times before I figured out which building it was. It's a good thing I couldn't find parking so I didn't look like the semi-stalker I'm sure I seemed to be, circling the block in nearly slow motion. Luckily Michael didn't question why we had to eat Thai all the way downtown instead of our regular place.

"You brought Michael? Where is he?" He looks around like Michael might jump out of the shadows and yell "Boo".

"He's sampling the delicacies."

"Doesn't he already have a boyfriend?" He smirks and I tug his ear roughly to wipe it off his face.

"Even Michael has standards. Most of these guys look like they could use a good flea bath."

"Yeah, and they all have small dicks."

"You've inspected them personally?" My eyes keep doing the dance of my body spinning, but keep winding up on the one portrait that's totally out of place. It's not me. I don't know who it is. I've never seen the guy before.

"No, I've just found the bigger the paintbrush, the smaller the cock."

"Good thing you're into graphics."

"So what do you think?" He's rocking back and forth on the heels of his shoes. It's the most movement he's made since I spotted him. He's anxious to hear my opinion. I'm what he was waiting for.

"It's pretty good. Interesting even." He beams, just fucking beams a natural glow and outshines all the amber mood lighting that I've now realized is coming from some discreet footlights on the floor. "Who's the old guy?"

"I guess it can't be that good if you don't even recognize yourself." He snickers. Cute, real fucking cute. I glare at him, watch him stare at his feet trying not to laugh. He looks almost shy, and if there's one thing he's not, it's shy. He takes a deep breath and lifts his head to stare at the portrait he seems to be most proud of. As he should be. It's unbelievable. "He's just some old homeless guy I saw in the park singing opera to himself."

The guy is in tattered clothing. He looks like he might have been good looking when he was younger, but time and life have beat the surface beauty out of him. He's got some sort of scarf on. I can tell it must have been vibrant in person, something only Emmett could pull off, because the pattern is sort of crazy in pencil, but he wears it like it's made of the finest silk. There are birds circling mid-air and what appears to be a few bodies rushing by in the background, totally oblivious to him. He just stands palms open, mid aria, singing to himself. I don't know how I know it was sunny that day, but the piece feels warm, even with Opera Guy in a beat up old wool coat. The amber lighting almost distracts from the natural light of the piece.

"He was a good subject. You really did him justice." I don't have to have seen him to know that.

"You think?" He seems genuinely unsure of his ability. "It was kind of hard putting it on paper. He was just standing there singing and no one was even paying attention, not even the birds. They just walked by him like he was some fucking statue no one notices anymore. You should have heard him Brian. He was amazing."

"You did it by hand didn't you?" I smile a small smile. I no longer care about why I shouldn't have come or what impression he's getting. He should be damn fucking proud of himself. I'm fucking proud of him.

"You can tell? It almost killed my hand." I nod my head and he blushes with pride and looks the other way. I think I might have circled the block thirty times if it meant getting to see that reaction.

"Why him? It doesn't seem to fit the rest of the series."

His face grows longer and more pensive. He won't look at me. "My teacher wanted all the artists to do a self portrait for their series. Only we couldn't draw ourselves. We had to find someone who best represented us. That's why the lighting is so mellow. I think she wants to see if people can figure out which student goes with which series."

"Can't you arty types ever do anything obvious? I think people would appreciate art a lot more if you weren't all so abstract about everything." I suck back the air around me, my throat heavy with constriction. I can't take my eyes off Opera Guy. If this is how Justin sees himself then I don't even want to know how he thinks everyone else sees him. It kind of scares me that I suddenly feel about ten years *his* junior and not the other way around. I'm all fumbling fingers trying to find a place to put my hands. Mostly I want to cover my eyes, stop seeing him stare back at me in that portrait. Instead, I just wipe my brow and try not to stare directly into the amber light at my foot. "How much are these going for?"

"They're not for sale. Just for show. You can take whatever you want." It's so easy for him to be unselfish. To be giving and expect nothing in return. He has no idea how much he's worth.

"And deny all of these people the pleasure of staring at me? Besides I don't want to ruin the succession." One missing piece and the entire balance is thrown off. A different arrangement and it no longer makes sense. It just becomes a series of angles. Put together it's a life study.

"You noticed." He looks briefly in my direction, summing up my position, his eyes following mine as I scan the series. "You have a really good eye. That's why you're so good at what you do."

"I do have a good eye. I notice a lot." He looks up at the final piece in my series, my eyes wide open. If anyone seems to know that, it's him. "I want that one." I point to Opera Guy.

"What do you want with that?" His confusion is palpable. He wasn't expecting that. I wasn't really expecting it either.

"It intrigues me." I turn to his puzzled expression. He's always trying to figure me out. If he looks hard and long enough, I'm sure he'll see how fucking obvious I really am, and for a moment, I don't care. I just don't care. "I don't want to just take it off the wall. You could... bring it over to the loft when you're done here." I'm not in the mood to be circular. I know what I want and since I'm not an artist, I can be as obvious as I want.

His first response is to stand straight at attention. I can see how much he's trying not to burst at the seams, but he falls into a casual pose. "I can't. I have to be up early for the breakfast shift. You could come over and pick it up."

Fucking artists.

"I'll be busy most of the week." Advertising must be some form of art somewhere in the world. "But I'll find some time to stop by."

His cheeks flush with their natural glow and I find myself staring longer than I should, and I just don't care.

"The creampuffs are actually pretty good."

I'm sure my head twitches involuntarily at the sound of Michael's voice. I fucking forgot he was even here. He approaches us chewing the last bit of his creampuff while he stares at the walls. Staring at me, unaware of what he's staring at until his eyes fall onto the final portrait. He looks down abruptly, right into the amber light, blinking rapidly, realization coming into focus. He kind of looks past me in Justin's direction, but not directly at him and swallows the creampuff with an exaggerated gesture.

"Hey Michael."

"Hey."

We all stand awkwardly. Justin with his piercing outlining his shirt, Michael with his sloppy boots and a bit of the creampuff on his lip and me with my attitude. What a fucking sight we must be. Whatever the opposite of a detente is, that's where we're at. We all just stare at different angles of me bathed in amber light. Justin looks at my eyes closed, I look at my back and Michael looks at my eyes wide open, while Opera Guy sings his unending aria. I can almost hear him in my head.

"Thanks for coming Brian." See, I knew he wasn't shy. "It meant a lot to me."

I soften my stance. It must be the warmth of the light because it almost feels like I'm melting. "We're gonna head out."

"I'll see you this week." He reminds me, hopefully. I just nod slowly. Michael is anxiously looking in the other direction.

I turn my back and start to leave when I feel his hand grasp mine and he stops me mid-stride. I turn around first. Michael, who's a couple of feet ahead of me stops and turns to see what's holding me up.

I think I feel his tongue, before I feel his lips. I know I feel his free hand on my neck pulling me down to his mouth. I don't feel much, other than light as can be. He releases my mouth, removes his hand from my neck, but struggles in letting go of my hand. He finally does and spins his back quickly away from me.

I watch him for a minute, back in his original position, hands in his khaki's but with a smile that starts at his mouth and reaches his toes.

Like amber waves of grain in a field of weeds...


	27. Ash

When Captain Astro died, I lit a few candles for him. I've watched Vic come back from near death more times than I really want to remember. I even went with ma to that kid's gravesite and laid flowers there. It was kind of shabby, just a pile of freshly dug dirt. It's kind of a shame that's all he amounted to in life, being buried by the city in some unmarked grave and mourned by a bunch of complete strangers. I'd never want to end up that way. Luckily, I'll probably never have to find out what it's like. Not that I'd be alive to know what it feels like, but still. I'd be looking down and I'd know.

I've been thinking about life and death a lot lately. I don't want to, but ever since Ben got out of the hospital it just comes to mind at the strangest moments. I was selling some kid a comic book the other day and he looked perfectly normal. I had no reason to be concerned. Suddenly, though, I had this one little moment where I kind of flashed on him coming from some sad home. Maybe one of his parents had died and he escaped into comic books in order to forget. I do that all the time now with my customers. I create some life for them, make up stories about their past, trying to figure out why they're so interested in superheroes and villains. I know why I am. I just wonder why everyone else is. Ben tells me that it's because I'm a writer now and my brain is always thinking of stories to tell. I didn't even realize I was any good at it, until I did it. It didn't turn out half bad. He says that's how most things are in life. It's a crapshoot. We know who we are through testing ourselves. Like the time my mom told me to give up comic books for Lent. I didn't last a week, that's how I knew they were so important to me. When she made me give up baseball or TV, I was fine, but not my comics.

What did the priest used to say when we went to church on Ash Wednesday? "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." That kind of freaks me out a little. Like all we really are is nothing, no matter what we do in life. That kid who got choked, no one thought anything of him. He was just dust and in the end that's what he returned to, dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

We don't really control anything. Ben can't control his T-cells, no matter how many cocktails he ingests. They just do what they want. I can't control my brain from thinking about all this depressing shit. George couldn't control his heart from giving out on him. It just happened. Justin couldn't control that psychopath from hitting him in the head with a bat. He was almost dust. Poof, he would have just blown away in the wind if Brian hadn't been there. Brian's the only one who ever seems like he has any kind of control over anything. Some superhuman fucking power to just stop anything from getting to him. Nothing and no one will ever touch Brian again. No amount of dust up his nose makes him fall down, no people with their fists pounding on him, and especially no guy giving him his heart. He just doesn't feel anything anymore. He's spent his life making sure of that. Only now he seems to be totally out of fucking control. I don't know when he started to lose it or if he even realizes he has, but it's all gone. And now it all feels like a lie.

I should be happy about this. Happy that he's decided to join the land of the living. Now I'm not so sure the living is worth all of that, if we're all just going to wind up ashes in the wind eventually. Even superheroes are dying, and they're never supposed to die. Who knows if Rage will ever see the light of day again. I can't predict that right now.

"He asked me to be the one." I just drop it out of nowhere. Why not? Brian lives to shock. Sometimes I have some tricks up my own sleeve.

"He proposed?" He gives me a quick, curious glance from his perch behind the wheel, speeding with the top down on one of the most beautiful nights of the year so far. I look at his face, searching for something. I'm not sure what. I might have thought there was jealousy there once, now it just seems like what it is, confusion.

"No. He pulled a Ted on me. He wants me to decide if he stays on the life support or not, if it ever comes to that." I've been thinking about death a lot lately, because I don't want to think about it.

"Can you do it?"

"No."

"Will you?"

I sigh deeply. "I don't know." That's the first time I've admitted that out loud. I've tried to avoid the subject as much as I can. If I don't think about it, then I don't think about what I'm agreeing to. How do you tell someone that you're okay with signing their death warrant?

And if I do this, then I'm telling him I'm there for the long haul. I'm still not really sure I can do that. I love him, I really do. And not in the way that I loved David. I love Ben the man, not like the superhero I think I imagined David was. He could do no wrong and he'd come to rescue me, of all people, from my boring life. Ben's not like that. He has more real things to worry about, like saving his own life. How do I know how long we really have? Maybe Brian was right all along. After the way I fell apart when he was in the hospital, I have no idea how I'm going to handle having to do it over and over again if comes down to that. And then there's just always this thing hanging over my head. This thing that just stops me... You don't control who you fall in love with anymore than you can control when it's your time to go. There's no explanation. It just happens when it's meant to happen.

"Don't over think it. Go with your gut. You'll drive yourself crazy otherwise. Trust me." He's right. If all we are is just a pile of dust and ash in the end, what does it matter how much thinking we do beforehand? I'm not really famous for my thinking anyway. It's not such a bad thing because when I think about things too much, I usually cause more of a headache than I need. Ma says I do my best thinking with my heart. Some people are book smart, some are street smart. I'm heart smart, people smart. Brian got the brains, and most of the time that doesn't bother me. Except when it does, like tonight, because he should know better. He should know that Justin won't ever let go now. The scary part is that I don't think *that* bothers him.

"Could you do it?" I don't know why I want to know this, but for some reason it's important to me. Maybe I just need his courage.

"Could I shut Ben's life support off?" Even when we're talking about life and death he still manages to be a wiseass. I roll my eyes and look at the trees speeding by me.

"If you had to decide when Justin was in a coma, could you have done it?" I know he won't answer me. He doesn't like to think about all of that. I don't really blame him. It was a horrible time. But I think I'm beginning to understand that if we don't appreciate the life we have, then we're all just going to wind up one big waste. Just one big lump of ashes being mourned by people who never really knew us, either because they didn't want to or because we didn't let them.

"It wouldn't have come down to that. His mother is his next of kin. She would have made the decision." I turn and see him stare down the road ahead of him. I knew he would never give me a straight answer. Brian talks a good game about living on instinct, but his brain gets him in trouble because he's always thinking. He never stops. Everything that comes out of his mouth and everything he does is something he's thought about beforehand. From the look on his face, I know that he must have spent time considering the possibility that it might come down to that when we sat in the hospital. We all did.

"So you never thought about what it would be like to have to do that to someone that you..."

"No." He cuts me off before I head down a path he doesn't want to follow. I don't know if it's because he doesn't want to think about Justin almost dying or... the other thing.

I'm pretty sure now that it's love that makes life worth it in the end. The way your parents love you, or you love your friends, or love to read comic books, or love to fuck your brains out. Maybe we all do start off as nothing but dust, but something has to carry you through until you become dust again. I guess that's love. We all need it in whatever way we can find it.

Even Brian. Especially Brian. No matter how much he'd like to control all of that.

It just fucking hurts is all.

"Would it be okay with you if I changed my mind and let Ben decide instead?" He looks relieved. "I mean if he's going to trust me with something like that, then I think I should trust him with it."

"I never wanted to do it anyway. You'd probably hang on long after you should be gone, just to piss me off." He grins without warning, but I know he's serious. He doesn't want to be responsible for being the one to cut off the life of someone he loves. And he does love me. Even if he's never actually said it, just talked around it. It's just not... "You're still going to have to do it for me though. I don't have anyone else who'd be willing to step up to the plate. Well... maybe Melanie. But she'd get too much pleasure out of it."

"You have my word."

That's what Brian has always needed. Someone who's going to stand up and do the right thing by him. Someone who's going to look out for his best interests, even when *he* doesn't know what they are. That can't be Justin. I'm sorry, it just can't. Not after all that's happened. But Brian seems to think it is or else we wouldn't have had that little scene back at the gallery. We wouldn't have been anywhere near a gallery on a Saturday night, on a night we were supposed to just hang out like old times.

I guess he's still in some fucking control, because that's where we wound up anyway. We'll all just move in whatever direction he points us. I won't, not anymore. I will not follow him down that road because I know it's leading nowhere. I don't care how many explanations he has. I like Justin. He's a nice kid, but he's got some growing up to do. You'd think he'd appreciate the guy who saved his life just a little more than he did. I know Brian is in love with him. God... that still isn't any easier to say. But I was in love with David and look where that got me. I think Brian's more in love with the idea of Justin than he is with Justin himself. Like I was with David. I mean really, what does Brian know about being in love? Absolutely nothing.

Love has to be solid and it has to be real if you're going to rely on it to get you through. Otherwise you may as well just turn to ash right now. Does he really believe he could ever rely on some 19 year old kid who can't decide what bed he'd rather be sleeping in, to decide whether or not he should live or die?

"If anything happens to me Mikey, make sure Gus is taken care of." The thought of something happening to him makes me tremble. This is why thinking gets you in trouble.

"I'll make sure he doesn't like pussy, even with two mothers." We both chuckle lightly, but he's still subdued.

"There's something else I'd want you to do."

"Name it," I grin. He knows I'd do anything for him. Like I said, love is real and solid, and given some of the shit I've had to do for him, there's no way he could doubt that.

"Keep an eye on Justin, the way you've kept an eye on me. He needs a friend like that." I just nod my head and smile a solid, impenetrable smile.

Fucking Brian... never does or says a thing without thinking about it first, does he?

"Could you drop me off at Ben's. I'm not in the mood for Woody's."

"The night's still young and beautiful. Are you sure?"

I nod again. He's right, it is still young and beautiful. It always will be, even when it's nothing but dust blowing around the wind.

I guess Ben's right. We learn the most about ourselves when we put ourselves to the test. I just wonder why the test part always has to be so difficult. It's like we can't find ourselves until we have to face the test of giving up something we love or jumping into the unknown and just taking a chance that it'll blow up in our faces, things like that. It's always the difficult shit. It seems kind of backwards. We should be able to know what's good for us, what we're good at, with the easy stuff. That's the stuff that should come naturally, not the stuff we have to make mistakes with over and over before we get it.

I've just been thinking too much lately, that's the problem. All this life and death stuff, it's all bullshit. We live and we die. Whatever we do in between isn't going to buy us another day.

After all, if a superhero can turn to ash, then what the hell chance does a man stand?


	28. Upon a Veil of Midnight Blue

"You really *are* a twat when you don't feel well, you know that don't you?"

"Just close the window. I don't want the rain getting all over everything."

I survey this prison cell he calls a home. What does he think is going to be ruined, the peeling paint on the walls?

"It feels like a fucking sauna in here Justin. I need air."

"If that's the case, then you should feel right at home." He wraps himself in those revolting sheets and walks right past me to the window slamming it down with as much force as he can muster considering his weakened immune system, the two glasses of wine he had and a good hour of being fucked blind behind him. I can almost hear the wood splinter from the impact. "Do you have any other complaints you feel like sharing, since you haven't stopped since you got here?"

"Come to think of it..."

"Please spare me."

"Don't ask a question you don't want the answer to." I smirk at him and stroll back to the unadorned bed. Well at least he took the sheets with him when he got up. It looks like a prison cot, no sheets so no one will hang themselves. Suddenly I can understand the impulse after being stuck in this box for almost two hours.

"I know it's not the Four Seasons, but I'm sure your first apartment wasn't much better."

He's got a point. In fact it may have been worse, or maybe it just felt that way. My skin crawls at the memory. "At least we had air conditioning."

"We?" He curls himself into a ball at the far end of the couch. As far away from me as possible.

"My roommate. The school had to rent out part of an apartment building since there was no housing left on campus. It probably wasn't much bigger than this place."

"And you complain about having to spend a couple of hours here? You had to *live* with someone in a place this size. I'd love to know how he put up with you."

"He preferred to bitch me out in his native language when I pissed him off. I didn't speak any of the language. It worked well." I light a cigarette, blowing the smoke at the ceiling cracks.

"Imagine that... a roommate you didn't have to communicate with. Why does that not surprise me?" He trails off speaking mostly to himself, but loud enough for me to hear.

I love summer storms. They come out of nowhere, buckets of rain just pouring down in sheets, thunder so loud it feels like the sonic universe is exploding. The lightning is the best part, it's intense. It just crashes right through the drops and turns the sky an electric blue color for one brief moment, before it returns to it's normal midnight ink. Just as quickly as it starts, it's gone. The puddles are the only things that leave a trace of its existence behind, to remind you it was ever there to begin with. I watch the brief flashes of light through the soaked glass with the corner of one eye, and Justin twitch at the sound of the thunder with the other. I guess I never really noticed how uncomfortable storms make him. We weren't exactly close last summer, and it doesn't rain much in winter.

"You really need to get some air in this place." The stink of the humidity being blown around the room by the lone fan is enough to make someone dizzy. Well that and a couple of mouthfuls of that grease he calls food, washed down with three glasses of cheap wine. It's always the cheap shit that makes me sweat and gets me sick. "The window wouldn't support an air conditioner, but I could get you one of those free standing systems."

I watch his chest rise and fall with a discontented sigh that seems to rise up to his head making it shake back and forth. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll suffer through the heat. It's not that bad with the window open."

"It's only June, wait until you get to July and August. Besides, what am I supposed to do? Suffer with you because you want to play martyr?"

He looks at me with heavy eyelids, his head leaning on the arm of the couch, the sheets covering him from shoulder to thigh. No wonder he doesn't want the window open. He's actually cold. "Why? Are you planning on spending a lot of time here?" He asks, without a trace of sarcasm.

I have no answer.

A quick sliver of blue lights up the window, so close it feels like it might come right through. It's probably a hundred miles above our heads. He doesn't notice. He's closed his eyes and blocked the world out, blocked my silence out. If he doesn't see me, maybe I don't exist. Why does he always close his eyes to block out sound?

"Listen, you got what you came for, you don't have to stick around. I'll be fine." His voice rings through the air.

"I wasn't worried you wouldn't be." I'm restless. The heat is getting to me. I feel like my ass is starting to cling to its position on this mattress. I have to get up before it leaves a permanent imprint. I could put my underwear on but the thought of putting on clothes just makes the room feel ten degrees hotter. "I'm waiting for it to let up a little. I'm trying to avoid killing myself tonight." I pause for effect, stubbing out my cigarette and look at him following my every footstep towards him. "I need something to do tomorrow." I kick his feet with my leg and he gives up some of his precious space to make room for me on the couch. It's hotter than the bed. Fuck.

"Why do you always have to say stupid things like that?" He doesn't like to think about stuff like that. I don't blame him.

"Why do you always get so hung up on the things I do and don't say?" I don't want to have this conversation because I just know it's going to be one of those times that requires me holding up my end, and I'm not in the mood to talk. I'm not in the mood to think. I'm too fucking hot to think. I just want to watch the rain pour down and forget everything else exists. Asking him a question he can't answer usually gets him to shut up.

"Because..." He stretches his legs in front of him, staring at his toes. "You say these... these things... and then you just expect me to forget them. You wouldn't say them if you didn't mean them."

This is why I didn't want to have this conversation, because now he's going to talk it into the ground, remind me of something I said a year ago, six months ago, a few weeks ago. Every word I've ever spoken.

A crash of thunder booms loudly enough for the window to shake. He stares at it desperately waiting for it to crack. But it settles down, awash in some kind of distortion from the streetlight and the lighted sign of the bar across the street. It looks like one of those pictures of cars in speeding motion, just a blur of light.

"I'm not about to throw myself off a bridge if that's what you think. I'll save the melodrama for you."

He buries his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead to relieve some tension, frustration coloring his every movement. "You know what, fucking forget I said anything."

"Gladly."

Only he's not quite done, and I never get away that easily. "Threaten to kill yourself, call me a twat, don't tell me you missed me, don't tell me you want me around, tell me you love me and then just pretend you didn't. Whatever, none of it fucking matters. You're right it's all just nonsense."

When it rains, it pours.

"Now you're catching on." Why... WHY can't I just fucking get it right. Just once.

He stands, the sheet falling off of him. I have an instinct to pick it back up and cover him with it. He really doesn't look well, maybe the wine wasn't such a good idea. "That's such fucking shit Brian," he explodes. I've only seen Justin truly angry a couple of times, and each time it's thrown me because he's like a fucking powder keg just waiting to go off. He's just waiting for the right moment to split the clouds with the thunder of his voice. "If it's all just words then fucking say them. They don't matter, so why make them matter by holding them back? Just throw it out there like you're ordering breakfast or asking for directions. Because that's all it really means right? It's nothing. So just fucking say it!"

"Like Ethan?" Now I'm fucking angry, fucking hot and fucking miserable. "Just fucking say it Justin, go ahead... 'say it Brian, like Ethan can say it'." I mock him and stalk to the window, opening it for some air. I don't care how fucking cold he is.

"Fuck Ethan!"

"You're the one who did that, not me." I cut him with my retort. And he wonders why all the words in the world aren't worth the effort. Yes, let's keep talking because that'll just get us so fucking far. I breathe in a deep breath of rain soaked air.

"I guess you can speak after all." He's angry still, but it's quiet anger, like a deep rumble from far away. In a way that's worse, because all you can do is wait and never know if or when it'll show up.

"I'm just following your lead Justin. Speak only when it's to my best advantage. Just your lead..." I watch the rain, leaning my hand on the wall. I don't want to turn around and look at him because I know I've said too much, and I feel the pangs of regret forming in the pit of my stomach. I don't want to see his face blanch because of something stupid I've said. I don't want him to hold onto all these words he places too much value on to begin with. It's all just words.

I hear him take tentative steps as the floor creaks beneath his feet, but he stops before he reaches his destination. "Then follow this lead. I love you Brian. See? It's not that hard to say. I don't care what you say, or don't say, or what you do, or how you push me away, I'm not going to stop." I feel his hand starting to rub circles on my back, and I want nothing more than to just relax and let go. We both watch the rain under the streetlight slow to a trickle.

Amadou used to sleep right through a storm. It would keep me up half the night, that's how I got used to them. My bed was the one closest to the window, and I'd just watch them until they disappeared and I could sleep. He said he was used to it, that half the year was a rainy season in The Gambia. He was an exchange student, studying biochemistry. Smartest fucking guy I ever met. Big guy too, about three inches taller than me with an accent so thick that I never understood what he was saying, even when he was speaking English. Apparently they speak English there, but half his phrases came out in his native tongue, so I never knew if he was speaking English or Mandinka, was it? I don't know what was worse, the thunder or his snoring. I must have promised myself a thousand times that I'd never live with anyone else again in my life if I could prevent it, after having to live with him for a year.

The housing department must have thought it would be funny to stick me with him since I complained about every other roommate I had. Was I really going to tell some 6'5" guy to shut the fuck up? Not if I wanted to live to graduate. Though truthfully, I don't think he could have crushed a bug. He was just *loud* and he talked a lot, even more than Justin. Thankfully he wasn't talking about anything I was interested in, so I never had to pay attention. He just talked to fill the time and practice losing his accent.

I haven't thought about him or his maniac girlfriend in years. I'd get these phone calls from her in the middle of the night when he'd be over at the lab, and she'd be screeching about him running around on her. Never did manage to convince her that he wasn't. She's lucky I was usually awake and otherwise occupied. There's nothing like pulling some guy off your dick to deal with a hysterical girlfriend calling from thousands of miles away. I don't know how many hard-ons I almost lost because of her. I never understood why he put up with her hysteria. They'd cry and fight one minute and the next he'd be whispering, well as low as his whispering got, like they shared the world's greatest secret between them. He loved the girl, that much was obvious, and he told her so over and over. It was just so easy for him. It rolled right off his tongue. This big, thick guy turned into a puddle of mush at the sound of her voice.

"What the fuck do you want me to say Justin?" That I haven't said a million times already. I feel trapped in this corner, the wood frame brushing my ass. "When I don't say anything, you get mad. When I do, you get mad. There's no winning here. I could say anything. I could just start speaking in tongues and gibberish and it would all amount to the same shit." I turn abruptly, wearing a sarcastic grin. "You know that's not such a bad idea. You want to hear me speak, then have a listen. Dog, tree, shoe, drake, quark, blerk, tanto, kano."

"Shut up!"

"Kanokanokanokanokanokano," I practically sing. I'm *such* A. FUCKING. COWARD. "Doesn't that sound sweet? I think it does, kanokanokanokanokanokano..."

"You are totally impossible. If you don't want me just say so, and I'll never bother you again. If you don't love me then just say so, and I'll stop imagining that you do. It's really fucking simple. You don't have to make me feel like an idiot on top of it all."

Every time he hung the phone up, that's what he told her. "Kano". It might have been "kanu" or "kanoo", I couldn't really make out his accent. All you had to do was listen to his tone to know what he was saying.

"I've already tried getting rid of you, that didn't work." He looks beyond my face to the window behind me, a slight shiver going up his spine. I should hug him, give him some body heat, but I don't move and he really doesn't expect me to. "It doesn't matter what either of us says. It only matters if you make it matter. I keep trying to tell you that. Maybe you're finally hearing me."

"Maybe that works for you Brian, but it doesn't work for me." He looks resigned, but he stands letting the cool air left after a storm breeze on his skin. "But you're right, I think I am finally hearing you. In fact, I think you're speaking loud and clear."

He grins a small, unexpected grin that lets me know that no matter how much I try to hide it, he knows me better than I know myself. He hears every word I don't say, every answer I don't give, hears my cowardice and hears me back away from his challenge. I won't say I don't want him, I won't say I don't love him. I won't lie out loud anymore than I'll speak the truth. Instead I'll just say nothing. Now it's my turn for a chill to run right up my spine, and I'm not even cold.

"What does that mean?"

"Doesn't matter. It's all just words." He moves away, collecting his sheet off the floor and wraps it around his shoulders. "The rain's pretty much stopped. It's probably safe for you to go."

I hadn't even noticed. "What time is it?"

"Probably about midnight." He guesses, without looking at a clock.

"I should go. I have a meeting in the morning."

He climbs onto the bed, wrapped in a big puddle of those ridiculous sheets and closes his eyes, blocking out the sound of me getting dressed and leaving.

"Brian?" The sound of his voice stops me mid-zip. "Maybe the next time you could stay."

"Who said there'd be a next time," I tease. His eyes saunter open.

"You did." He smiles a content smile and turns on his side. "I'm always listening Brian."

I take a deep drag of the humid night air as I slip my shirt on and walk toward the portrait I came to retrieve. I pick it up, look at Opera Guy singing his beautiful aria, and I feel the same warmth of the sun beating through the drawing that I did the first time. I put it down, I don't want it to get wet. I'll come back for it.

The weatherman said it'd be sunny and bright blue skies tomorrow. It'll keep until then.


	29. Azure

The sky at this time of day is like one big azure tent. It’s the perfect blue without a cloud in sight. The sun has begun to sink low enough into the horizon that it doesn’t hurt to stare straight at it. I wonder what it’s like to look at a sunset in some place without any buildings to block your view. Maybe some place with mountains or canyons. Nothing standing between the two, but you and nature. When you’re driving it almost feels like you’re heading right towards the skyline. I know in the rational part of my brain that I could drive a thousand miles and never get any closer. But it’s always this particular time of day especially during one this bright and clear, that makes the impossible seem possible. If it were warmer I’d pull the top down and just breathe the air in. It’s false almost, all that sun and the vastness of the azure blue sky. If that’s all you saw, you’d think it was a beautiful, warm day, not bitterly cold.

I don’t care though. Right now my mind just wants to float away. Fly into the clouds and appreciate the possibilities. I can finally feel the difference between being twenty and twenty-one setting in, and it took me all day to get here. It’s just a number but everything feels limitless. Maybe it’s my empty stomach or the last traces of my fever catching up with me, but I feel like my head is floating off of my body. Everything is tingling. I guess I’m a little excited about tonight, but I’m not sure that’s it entirely. Everyone has gone to all this trouble for me and I know they totally didn’t have to, but they wanted to, and that makes me smile. I know he had a lot more to do with it than he’s willing to admit. For some reason that makes me tingle even more.

I study his profile for a quick second, too scared to take my concentration off the road for long. I don’t want my first drive with him in the passenger seat to be our last. It’s cool because he’s pretending to nod off anyway. I know he’s not asleep. He just doesn’t want to watch me drive. That’s okay because I don’t want him watching me anymore than he wants to be. It’s a shame that he’s missing such a beautiful view though. I think even he would appreciate how beautiful it is, solid, dirty cement shadowing the horizon and all. He loves beautiful things. Too bad he doesn’t truly know how to include himself on that list. Oh he thinks he’s beautiful, that I don’t doubt. But that’s just his surface. He won’t let himself see the rest.

I will not get maudlin, not today of all days. I’ve done enough of that already for one day. Everything is just going too well for me to start with all of that again. Besides, he doesn’t want to hear me whining about him when we’re supposed to be celebrating me. He’ll be the star attraction tonight, without even trying, especially looking like that. He’d deny it to anyone who asks but I know he wants it to be my night. There’s just something about the way he’s been acting all day, proud of himself for whatever godawful gift he’s picked out, but it’s more than that. It’s almost like he’s been proud of me all day. He wants everyone to be as proud of me as he is, most especially me. He thinks I don’t get that, but I do. He just doesn’t understand that I’m already pretty proud, as is.

My stomach is all knotted up again. I don’t feel sick, that’s not it. It’s just that feeling I get whenever I try to stop smiling or laughing and I can’t. All the blood in my system seems to pool right in the pit of my stomach and pump into my lungs every time I squeeze. Almost like I’m jerking off a hard on without a penis... Okay, so there’s obviously something psychologically wrong with me. Must stop thinking about sex. Now. Will not think about sex in front of my mother.

I’ll think good thoughts. Like the fact that that’s the feeling I get when I look at him sometimes. It’s not always immediate or really noticeable, but when it’s a good day and we’ve managed to act like halfway normal human beings for most of it, I can’t shake it at all. As silly as it seems, I wonder sometimes if he ever feels that way. He would never tell me if he did. I just wonder. He really is a good guy, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. He’s probably better than I deserve. I haven’t really done anything great in life to deserve much in return. I wouldn’t tell him that though. He would take total advantage of it. I kind of dig Ben’s philosophy that you get back in life whatever you put in. I dig it, but I don’t think I really agree with it. If that were true we’d all be pretty fucked, especially Brian. It seems kind of random what we get back in life. I’m sure Ben never did anything to get back HIV. That was just life handing him a raw deal. It actually seems kind of sick when you think of it that way, that he’d somehow done something to deserve it. I really like Ben but he doesn’t always make sense to me. But I guess when you’re faced with life and death you don’t really care how much sense you’re making, you just want to reach out for whatever is going to comfort you. I should know.

Nothing like thinking about a bat to my head to celebrate my birthday. Wasn’t I supposed to be thinking happy thoughts right about now? It just springs to mind, even now, out of the clear blue sky. Everything seemed so unreal then. If you would have told me that I’d feel like I had the world at my feet three years later I probably would have thrown a heavy object at you, with my good hand. But I do feel like that and I know Brian had a lot to more do with it than he wants to give himself credit for. He reminds me over and over again of what I have, by always bringing me back down to earth when I start getting all carried away and insecure. I suppose, if I have to admit it, I do get like that more often than I care to remember. That’s something else that just sneaks up out of the blue, these sudden attacks of paranoia. I don’t even know if he realizes how much he calms me down. I try not to get my hopes up where he’s concerned but it really feels possible that this isn’t a fluke anymore. Every so often, I still have to remind myself that he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. It didn’t really seem possible for such a long time, still doesn’t in some ways, but maybe just maybe he’s starting to see the same view I am, even with his eyes closed.

You know what I feel like right now? Like I could just fucking conquer the world. Climb out of the Jeep and just start walking on air until I lifted myself into the sky. It’s this free, floating feeling. Somehow I know he’d follow me even if I had to drag him on my back. Maybe it’s knowing I’m 21 and I can be or do anything I want without anyone’s permission. I’m officially a man. I’m not my mother’s little boy anymore. I’m not some kid that needs to be taken care of. I’m not some 17 year old idiot who needs to be shown the ropes. I know where they are and none of them are tying me down. And what do I really want to do, more than anything right this very minute? I want to roll down the windows and just scream until my throat is hoarse, run a few miles and gather more air in my lungs and keep screaming until there’s no one left to hear me because I’m so far away from everything. I want to just chase the sky. And I want him to come with me. I want him to just let go and burst open, laugh with me at how stupid we must sound until tears are coming out of his eyes. I want him to feel the blood just swarm in his stomach and the cool air sting his skin. And I just want it to not matter, to be no big deal to for him to just watch the sun fall away and collapse on the ground with me. I bet it would feel fucking awesome!

“Brian!” I don’t care if he was really sleeping, now I’m excited. “Brian wake up!”

“Christ... did you run someone over?” He gives me a bewildered stare, totally shaken out of whatever reverie he was running amuck in.

“Brian!” I keep repeating his name like I’m going to telepathically drill my idea into his head with just that one word. “Brian, we need to go away, just the two of us. Fuck the party, let’s just go.” I’m serious and he’s worried, I can tell from the look on his face.

“I thought I told you to stop taking that anti-psychotic medication. It’s for people with real problems.”

“Just pick a direction and I’ll drive until we can’t drive anymore.” I know he’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and maybe I have.

“Are you already having a mid-life crisis at fucking 21? Besides you start work on Monday. I’m sure Russell would be very disappointed if his favorite little artist totally fucked him over after all the strings he’s pulled for you. And not in the way he’s been hoping for, for years... Save it for your next long weekend.” He turns his head as if he’s going back to pretend sleep. 

I don’t even think twice about slamming my foot down on the brake. I can hear the tires peeling behind me and I have a tiny moment of regret. Thankfully Melanie and Lindsay’s neighborhood is pretty quiet and there’s not much traffic, because I probably could have killed both of us and a small family for that stupid move. Bet he regrets giving me the Jeep now. But we’re safe and we’re alive and that’s all that matters.

“Forget Russell. Who gives a shit about his hairy ugly ass? Brian I’m serious! I don’t give a shit about the job or Russell or whatever he wants from me. Nobody will care if we don’t show up for the party. They probably expect us not to! Let’s just go, we’ll figure out where when we get there. Maybe New Mexico or Arizona.” There’s tons of open space there. I’m begging now and begging is unattractive, but so is the thought of being forever stuck in the Pitts. If anyone should know that it’s Brian.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?” He sits upright in his seat, surveying the inside of the car as if I might have damaged it or like the roof might fall in at any moment. I’m not really sure. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

“I can’t spend my life here Brian. *We* can’t spend our lives here. We have to get out of here. Remember how you thought you needed to go to New York? Well I think you were right. Maybe not New York, but we need some kind of change.” It just hit me harder than any fucking bat ever could. Our lives will never change as long as we don’t.

“And your solution is to just start driving? Just leave everything behind and just start driving? Are you turning 21 or fucking 12 today Justin? Because suddenly I’m not really sure.” He spits his words out at me, but I can see the concern behind them. “I’ll just leave the agency. You can leave school and work. We can leave all of our friends. We’ll just write them from the backseat we’ll be living out of. We won’t have any money for stamps but we can write... Yeah there’s a fucking life plan for you.”

“It’s better than any plan we have right now!” I grab his arm with what feels like the force of the devil possessing me and make him pay attention. 

“What kind of plans do you expect us to have?” He asks me like he’s genuinely interested. This throws me for a second.

“I don’t know, but anything has to be better than none at all. Or even worse... no plan at all and no intention of ever coming up with one. Can’t you see that?” That seems kind of obvious. I wonder why he looks so unfazed? 

“So your big plan,” he singsongs, mocking me “is to take off tonight without any destination and just leave everyone and everything behind? That’s not a plan Justin, that’s a fucking joke.” 

“Okay so we don’t leave tonight, or tomorrow or even next month, but we have to go Brian.” I steady my nerves. I wasn’t even aware of how fast I was speaking, it’s just all coming out of me as soon as it hits my brain. “I love everybody, my mother, Molly, Deb, all of our friends. I’d miss all of them, I really would. I know you would too Brian, but think about it. Do we really need to see them every single day? People move away all the time. What do you expect us to do in the Pitts for the rest of our lives? We’ve done it all. We can’t stay here, because if we do we’re just gonna keep going in circles.”

I think I see recognition, but I don’t dare hope that I’m right. I’m probably not. “To be 21 and stupid again... Maybe that works for you Justin, but it doesn’t work for me.”

“Why not? You made a lot of shit you thought didn’t work for you in the past work somehow. You showed me how to make a lot of things I thought didn’t work for me work. Tell me that you want to stay here and I’ll drop the subject.” I know he can’t answer that without lying, and Brian never lies to me.

“My entire fucking life is here Justin. What do you expect me to do?”

What do I expect? I don’t know. I’m lying, I know exactly what I expect. I expect him to acknowledge for once in his life that his “entire fucking life” is me. Fuck it, I don’t care how selfish that sounds. I know his friends are important. Gus is important. His job is important. But if I’m not the most important thing, then we have a real problem on our hands.

And this is when I know. I just know this moment is going to change my life forever for better or for worse. Because the entire world just opened up right in front of my eyes. I don’t want to stare at the depressing Pittsburgh skyline for the rest of my life. I don’t want to wait for Brian to catch up anymore. I want him right beside me.

“Well I’m going Brian. As soon as I graduate, I’m out of here. You can come, or you can stay.” 

Please, please, please come with me. Please... I came and I stayed, it’s time for you to do the same.

I feel like the world has stopped for a brief moment, everything is so still. The sun is almost entirely gone except for a few streaks of yellow and red dotting the azure outline of the horizon. The moon will be out soon and the day will be over. Not a single cloud to be found anywhere. I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll still be 21, but now I’ll be 21 with a purpose. If I could just suspend this moment forever when everything is possible, when he can’t break my heart and tell me no, like I know he will, I would die a happy man. 

“We’ll go... *somewhere* this summer. See if it gets this sudden case of wanderlust out of your system.” His eyes drift over my face, as if he can’t believe he’s saying this stuff and I can’t believe he is either, because that wasn’t a no, was it? “If it doesn’t, we’ll talk. You can’t just make a decision, change your life on a whim like that without thinking. There’s too much you risk losing, too much...” I don’t think he’s even talking to me anymore. He’s convincing himself of something. To come with me? I’m not sure.

I don’t give a shit though, I smile the most delirious fucking smile I’ve ever felt in my life. I wouldn’t try to suppress this feeling for anything. The blood in my veins is pooling in my stomach, in my arms, in my feet and my legs, my ears, every single inch of my body. He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t frown either. He just looks out the front window in deep concentration.

“Don’t think about it too much Brian. Thinking about things always gets you in too much trouble. You know you want to.” I’m not even pressing my luck anymore. I’m slamming down on it like it was another brake pedal. I undo my seatbelt and almost slither out of my seat, as far as I can go with the stick shift in my way. “What did you tell me Brian? It’s scarier to find your own way in life? Well I’m pretty sure it’s scarier to do it alone. Come with me.”

“You’re going to pay attention to some advice I probably gave you when I was half drunk and horny? I would have said anything.”

“No you wouldn’t.” I’m still smiling and I just know he must know what that weird tingling feeling is like, because I can see him trying desperately not to smile. He can pretend all he wants, but he knows I can hear every word he says. “You won’t tell me no right now when you could to just shut me up.” He is beautiful, every pore and every unsaid word. The map of his skin just seems endless, tattooed with beauty. I don’t deserve him, but he’s what I’ve got.

“Everyone is waiting for us you know.”

“I don’t care. Let them wait. It’s my birthday I can be as late as I want to be.” The roof does cave in, only it’s the roof of his mouth falling into my tongue. I tickle it with a feather touch and feel the rumble of a laugh somewhere in the back of his throat. His lips are warm and moist sucking on my own. I know he’s in no rush to push me off when he moves his hand to the back of my head and pulls me closer to him. It doesn’t even seem sexual. I don’t have the urge to strip naked like I usually do when we kiss. 

It just seems, I don’t even know... It just seems like home. Wherever that may be.


	30. Chameleon

"I thought you were a minimalist?"

"I thought I told you to knock before you came in."

He wanders over to the wall that houses Opera Guy, inspecting it as if I might have pulled it out of the trash on the street and stuck it on the wall, just to piss him off. I have an urge to make him avert his eyes or at least block his view, which makes hanging it there for all the world to see to begin with sort of pointless. I just can't take his pinched, judgmental snarl.

"Who's the artist?" He inspects the small signature in the corner of the piece. "Just Justin, no last name?"

"Just a local guy I know. Is there something you wanted?" I gesture to the pile of work sitting in front of me, hoping he gets the message. I'm far too busy for his usual cat and mouse games. Apparently we have very different definitions of the meaning of the word "partner". His doesn't include an equal say in how this company is run or even the slightest acknowledgment that I'm not his underling. It's Vance's world and the rest of us just hold up the back end. Which makes the title "partner" sort of pointless, as well. Of course as partner, it's perfectly acceptable for me to take half the blame for whatever disasters strike. Then, and only then, am I perfectly qualified to stand beside him and not a step behind. I know the way he works by now. He can have all the imagined power he wants. I have the clients and I make nearly the same money. And I don't have to shine my ugly bald head twice a day to impress anyone. It's too bad he's fucking brilliant. He'd be so much easier to hate if he wasn't.

"You might want to rethink your decorating choice." He waves in the general direction of Justin's portrait, not even bothering to turn and acknowledge its existence. I sit up straight in my chair readying my defensive stance. I know I'm going to need it. "It doesn't match the rest of the office. It's distracting. And it looks cheap."

I feel my hand gripping the ledge of my desk, my tongue growing heavier with unspoken vitriol with every passing second. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Opera Guy singing his aria, oblivious to the world. I almost wish I had that kind of unforced focus, the ability to tune the world out at will. I find it oddly calming imagining the sound of his voice. "Well it was either that or a poster of Zach O' Toole." His eyes flash a brief question but he knows better than to ask it out loud. "We're meeting with the Brown Tech guys tomorrow and I have a ton of work to do. So if you don't mind..."

I motion to stand and see him out the door. He takes a seat right in front of me, crossing his legs in an unhurried manner. There's no getting out of this meeting. I should have known as soon as I woke up and found the sink backing up all over the bathroom floor that today was not going to be my day. Justin made it no better with his early morning attitude. So I woke him up out of a dead sleep at 7 in the morning and told him to get his ass over to the loft in ten minutes... Who else has the time to wait for the plumber, isn't that what friends are for? Mikey would have been there in five. Fucking brat strolled in almost an hour later, still in his favorite sleepwear eating a bagel. I could have killed him. I don't know how many times I 've woken up to the feel of those sweatpants tangled in my legs. I woke up one morning and suddenly I was wearing my own pair. I have no idea how I let him talk me into buying them. I didn't make it in to work until almost 10 because of him and his ass holding up those sweatpants. Oh, and the sink. Then Cynthia chewed *my* ass out for missing the conference call she spent three hours trying to set up yesterday at my insistence. I spilled coffee all over the few notes I did manage to make for Brown Tech and now I have some guy who thinks shoulder pads in his suits are a good thing giving me decorating tips.

"That's why I'm here. It seems to me Ryder let you get away with murder. I don't like being thrown off guard Mr. Kinney." I *hate* that snotty fucking accent of his. Even when I was 23 and eager, I never felt as dissected as I do whenever Vance decides to share his so-called wisdom with me. "You have absolutely no direction with this campaign. If you can't handle it, I'll find someone who will."

"You're a businessman Gardner, surely you looked at the contract that made me partner. I'm not your lackey, don't threaten me. " He can pull this senior partner trip with the bottom feeders he hired. I have no time and no patience for this routine today. "Have I failed yet?"

"That's not what matters Mr. Kinney. The ability to tap dance your way out of certain disaster isn't a skill I admire. I want to see this genius you're so proud of on a more consistent and regular basis." His tone is a strange mix of derisiveness and sincerity. "I have no doubt that you're good at what you do. But I don't like feeling like I can't rely on you. I made you partner, I expect you to act like one."

That stings, more than it should. Just the implication of it.

"Well that goes both ways Gardner. I expect you to show me the respect I've earned for all the work I've done. Something you have yet to do."

"Prove yourself worthy. Tell me what your thinking is, for Brown Tech."

I take a deep breath, unsure of how to proceed. I can talk my way out of this, I've talked myself out of worse. But what do I know about selling semiconductor chips? I can't even figure out why Brown Tech feels like it needs a "hip" campaign for a bunch of technobabble magazines that no one has ever heard of. All I could picture while reading all that research on silicon and doping was a group of strung out computer techs sniffing acid off their floppy disks. I still don't know what it is. If it weren't for the payoff Brown Tech was offering, I would have handed this campaign to the first junior exec who passed my office. A decidedly unpopular approach to acting like I'm in charge and something Vance would no doubt use as further proof of my incompetence to justify treating me like a toddler who always needs supervision. I shift some papers in front of me and stare at them as if the answer will leap right out at me, while his eyes bore holes in my scalp, waiting for just the right opportunity to admonish me again. I hate the nervous pull in my chest, but I remain as cool as possible given the circumstances.

The intercom rings, Cynthia's voice breaks my concentration. "Mr. Taylor on line one." My chest relaxes in gratitude for the last minute save and tenses back up as soon as I see Vance's reaction to my answering the call. If he wasn't aggravated before, he's certainly a steampipe waiting to burst now.

"Mr. Taylor? How are you?" I gesture as if to suggest the call can't be helped and turn sideways, away from Vance's hooded scowl.

"I'm standing here staring at a delivery from Bradford's. One 10,000 BTU standing air conditioner with remote control. How the fuck do you think I am?" Damn, forgot that was coming today.

"I see. Well I believe it's a reasonable offer."

"What? Shit! Brian are you talking to me with someone in your office again? Can't they leave?" He hates it when I do that.

"That's not an advisable choice at the moment." I watch Vance's fingers tapping impatiently on the arm of the chair, an annoying rhythmic tip tap... tip tap. I lean back in my chair and relax my shoulders. Let him wait.

"Oh good, then that must mean your boss is there." I bite my tongue and prevent myself from correcting his assertion, even *he* can't acknowledge that I'm a partner. "So that means I can ream you out and you can't answer me back!" *That* he loves. "Didn't I specifically say I didn't want you to buy me an air conditioner?"

It's absurd really that he's throwing a hissy fit over something so insignificant while water is threatening to leak into my bedroom and soak right through my hardwood floors, Vance is waiting to pounce, and I'm about to lose an account worth several million dollars. But Justin is unhappy, and when Justin is unhappy he has no qualms about making the rest of the world, or rather me, suffer with him. My entire life could be falling apart, but I've ignored his wishes and that takes precedence above all else. It's not absurd, it's insane. "That's something we can work out later Mr. Taylor. It doesn't have to be negotiated at this juncture." Much later, with you out of those sweatpants. I'll give you a reason to beg me to buy you ten air conditioners to cool you off, several times in fact. The thought, surprisingly enough, relaxes me even more.

"I asked you something, you ignored me, you got your own way yet again. If you can't see the problem with that, then there's nothing to 'negotiate'."

I cannot believe I'm having this discussion, with Vance's thick fingers tapping out my dirge song and floods threatening to wash me right out of my own home. He's going to kiss the ground that I walk on for that air conditioner when I'm forced to move in with him, penniless and homeless because we have to have this conversation right this very minute. "It's a minor bump in the road, nothing that we can't fix with a little rearrangement of priorities." It occurs to me that if I'm not careful I'm going to be singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of my entire life, as I know it. Because I know Justin, and I know he's listening to every word I'm saying, staged for someone else's benefit, as it may be. He's the one getting all the reward. I'm saying everything he wants to hear! Negotiate, priorities, worked out, fuck me!

"Which one of us is supposed to do the rearranging? I hope you don't think it's me." He's egging me on because he has me right where he wants me, dead to fucking center. I let out a sigh and check to make sure Vance's head hasn't exploded all over my newly painted office. "Brian? Are you gonna answer me?"

"I'll be certain it gets worked out to everyone's satisfaction." The client always comes first, how many times did I drill that into his head? Would I ever disappoint a client in front of "my boss"? Of course not. I wish Justin were that manipulative. It'd be so much easier to blame him.

"I hope you're serious about that," he takes a brief pause before he lowers the gauntlet. "Promise me."

I now officially have honorary membership to the land of... *relationship*... hell. Heteros greet you at the gates and give you the tour, the lesbians work the gift shop. Please don't feed the hungry homos, because they'll bite your dick right off as soon as they smell weakness and you'll be forced to live out your days in their dirty, smelly swamp because no one else will have you. You'll be dickless, penniless, and homeless, but you'll be cool because you had the forethought to bring an air conditioner with you into the fires of hell.

"I... promise." I hope the plumber leaves his snake, because I know a certain pipe that needs a good cleaning. "I'll work something out and call you back in a few minutes Mr. Taylor."

"No wait Brian, there's something else. I think I know what's wrong with the sink, and I think I can fix it myself. I think there's some kind of hair clogged in the drain from all that water you dump in there after you're done shaving. All I have to do is pour some vinegar down. My mother does it all the time."

Oh God, I'm a dickless, penniless, homeless... WIFE... in HELL! "Please don't," I threaten. I'm quickly losing my resolve and Vance is quickly losing what hair he has left waiting for me to be done.

"It'll save you a lot of money."

"I strongly, and I can't emphasize this enough, advise you *against* that Mr. Taylor, especially if you want things to go smoothly later," I'm about half a step away from breaking character, or maybe his legs, entirely, "...down the line," I add, absentmindedly.

"Fine, I'll leave the cleaning to the professionals. Don't freak out on me."

"What? What did you say?"

"I said don't freak out on me," he repeats himself.

"No the other part."

"I'll leave the cleaning to the professionals?" Yes! Yeeeeesss!

"That's it, that's what I needed to hear, thank you." I scramble for a pen and pad, writing in a shorthand only I, and Cynthia, understand. "I'll call you back Mr. Taylor."

"Okay, but Brian one last thing."

I'm not even listening, just jotting down quick notes. "Yes?" The receiver is practically back in it's cradle.

"I still love you, even if you are a shit who wakes me up at 7 in the morning and who never listens to me. Just thought you should know you don't get off the hook that easily," he practically screams in victory. Maybe it's just the unnatural sound hitting my ear...

"Goodbye Justin."

"Byyyyeeee." It's like a melody.

"Are you quite done Mr. Kinney?" I snap out of my momentary daze, adjust my suit jacket and swivel back in Vance's direction. "Pressing business?"

"Something like that." I ignore the way his cheeks have a tendency to puff out to an immeasurable circumference when I become obstinate. "You were asking about Brown Tech? Well I've come up with an idea. It's irreverent, it skews younger, and it makes the point Brown is trying to emphasize, that they're the company of choice for manufacturers. They're reliable, they're efficient and without their semiconductors, nothing else would run."

"What's your idea?"

I'm a fucking genius, after all. "Picture a centerfold pull out, say three pages. On the first page, you have a bunch of techno geeks with palm pilots and headphones in disarray in an orchestra pit, all of them beautiful of course. Sheet music all over the place, chairs turned over, instruments all around. Second page a full orchestra with a conductor playing a symphony. Third page, same techno geeks installing their chips into computers in harmonious effort on an assembly line. Tag line "Leave the conducting to the professionals... Leave the semiconducting to us. Brown Tech Ltd."

He laces his fingers on his lap, tapping his thumbs together, trying to come up with some justifiable reason to start screaming, killing time until he has to admit I'm good. I'm very, very good. "Fred Astaire lives again. Have it drawn up."

He stands, straightening his tie, regarding me with disdain and doubt in equal measure. "I don't know what your boyfriend said to you on the phone just now that inspired that campaign and I don't really care. But I'm not kidding when I say I want less 'inspiration' and more solid work from you. And it would behoove you to inform your muse, Mr. Taylor, that you need to deal with your domestic squabbles on your own time, not on mine."

I rise to my full height behind my desk. I don't give a fuck what he has to say about me or how I work, or how he dismisses our partnership, there are certain lines that he will not cross. "If I ever want your advice, I'll ask for it. Until then, don't ever come into my office again and tell me how to conduct myself or my life. And don't ever bring Justin into this again. This is between you and me, and it'll stay that way."

"You brought him into this Mr. Kinney. It's up to you to keep him out of it." He glances at Opera Guy and back at me with a thin, tight, threatening smile across the two reeds that pass themselves off as lips before turning to leave as abruptly as he walked in, stopping at the door before he leaves. "He's *your* partner, not mine. I only have one partner, and I know how to keep him in line. Pity you can't say the same."

Bastard.

I pride myself on being able to read people, but I can't get a firm grasp on Vance. He has yet to show me his true colors either because he doesn't have any at all and this is all there is, or because he doesn't want me to see them anymore than I want him to see mine. He just sticks his claws in every pot, stirring up trouble to keep me on top of my game. He never wants me to get too comfortable, no matter what titles he might give me. He'll always force brilliance out of me by making me jump through hoops. I adjust, because he knows I can. I half respect him and half loathe him. All bets are off if he continues on this track, and I won't even blink when I respond, if he continues to make this personal. He's only seen the tip of my true colors and they bury themselves pretty quickly, almost as soon as they appear, shedding their skin until they're entirely different and unrecognizable. I'm beginning to think he's already seen too much.

I look at Opera Guy, he's always himself, he doesn't have to be a chameleon and change himself to please everyone else. He is who he is and that's enough. It's what makes him a work of art and what makes the rest of us a bunch of frauds.

I wonder how does a partner act? And if you can't be your true self, whatever that may be, is the act worth all that much? But I guess that's the beauty of being a chameleon. You're never truly one thing, you can be all things to all people and still be you for better or for worse.


	31. Olive

I'm working on a theory, it still needs a little tinkering. All roads to self discovery begin by accident. For instance, I figured out I was really gay the first time I almost died.

I was sixteen and unknowingly infatuated with Jimmy Bowman, the only guy I knew who was actually out at my age. He was pimply and about thirty pounds overweight. I lived to impress him. I smoked my first joint with him in his parents' basement, which was filled with shag carpeting, plastic covered couches and not much else. We got a little punchy that afternoon and wound up having a contest that involved stuffing olives in our mouths in some amazingly idiotic venture to see which one of us could fit more. It didn't occur to us we could have had a better time using the *real* object of the game. So I fit seven in at once, he gave up at four. He was crying tears of laughter at the sight of my mouth. I tried spitting them out but my mouth and senses weren't cooperating, dulled from the pot. I started gasping for air. Between the gasping and the clouds of smoke, I didn't think to breathe through my nose. I finally managed to dislodge them and Jimmy said the oddest thing to me, "You better keep practicing that." In my head, quite by accident, that was the first time I ever let myself admit I was gay, because I knew exactly what he meant and he was the first person who recognized it in me.

Like Columbus accidentally discovering America, it led to a lifetime of accidental discoveries. I accidentally discovered my calling at Jerk at Work by accidentally getting caught not really jerking off. I wouldn't have Emmett waiting in the wings if I didn't accidentally figure out he was what I'd been looking for all along.

I certainly wouldn't be standing here watching this train wreck waiting to happen without some accidental timing and accidental diarrhea of the mouth.

Accidents I can deal with, but I don't particularly care for startling surprises. I like things to progress in a nice, structured, orderly fashion. You pull the toilet paper over the roll, you keep all of your money bankface and you never, ever attempt to upset the precarious balance of the universe as we know it by trying to challenge Brian Kinney's place in it. I should have known this was a bad idea from the outset. From the first minute Michael dropped that word into the conversation! "We'll just *surprise* him." How did I ever let him convince me that Brian needed a boys night out and that I needed to be a part of it? Too much work stress kept Brian away from Babylon all week. Frankly, I like it when he's occupied. It's the only time I stand a fighting chance with the halfway decent selection of men. I go from "never" to "maybe in the next lifetime", which is a step up in my world. Let Brian stress himself out all he wants. But no, I had to let Michael talk me into this surprise "kidnaping". Of course Emmett was all gung ho, he's all for a surprise and drama anytime, anywhere.

That was my first mistake. Listening to the two of them.

My second mistake was sticking around after our very accidental discovery of a certain blond rumpled twink sleeping on a certain couch of a certain person whom we should have been avoiding to begin with so as not to tempt fate. When you do that and start creating your own accidents by purposefully not thinking, it dilutes the self-discovery. Accidents just have to happen and push you in certain directions, you can't make them happen.

The third mistake was believing that being an ex-accountant and current entrepreneur somehow gives me some kind of linear logic and sense that I can use to offer as an acceptable olive branch to keep the peace. Who can argue with cold, hard facts?

Apparently, every last fucking one of them!

"Teddy, it's none of our business, let them work it out themselves." "You don't understand Ted." "Ted, you're not really helping." I should have stayed home. I would have accomplished just as much there, if not more.

Okay, so I don't profess to know Justin that well, but I'd like to think I can understand him on some level. We don't really have much in common. No one would ever mistake us for being bosom buddies. But I understand a thing or two about unrequited feelings, something he seems to feel is an issue. I've had plenty of experience, and I've been witness to Michael's experience with the concept for long enough. The problem isn't that Justin's feelings are unrequited, it's that they are, in fact, returned. Just not the way he wants them to be. Imagine what he'd do if he had to walk in Michael's shoes for a day or two. The problem, as I see it, is Brian. It's always Brian. He's the common denominator in the equation who requites feelings as if he's handing out admission to some holy mecca where no mere mortal should tread so they must be kept at bay. We wouldn't have half of these problems if Brian would just learn to stick to his own credo. The one he reminds us of over and over again, but which he conveniently forsakes when it stands in the way of having something he wants.

It's actually very disconcerting. Brian with a boyfriend? I would have put the chances of that happening on par with the chances of my making money off my expertise... porn and finance. Accidents can happen and somehow Brian accidentally ended up in a relationship while I accidentally palmed my way into the high end of the tax brackets.

This whole night should have gone differently. We should have just come over to an empty loft, waited around for Brian to come home and tell us all to get the fuck out because he's a busy guy who doesn't have time to hang out with the petty losers he calls friends. We could have left with our tails between our legs, no worse for the wear for trying. Everything would have been fine.

So of course Brian's fucking sink had to choose today of all days to overflow.

I believe Justin when he says that's the reason he's here. Michael... not so much. It doesn't help that Justin is dressed like someone who's been lounging around their house all day. The only problem is, this is no longer his home. Something which, of course, Michael felt the need to point out, as if any of us needed to be reminded. Which, in turn, put Justin on the defensive, reminding Michael that he didn't need to be reminded and that Michael didn't need to remind everyone else. At this point, we've been reminded several times as if anyone actually cared to begin with.

That was when Justin should have made his exit. We still could have gotten away with relatively little harm. Unfortunately the fates seem to hate me because that would be the moment Emmett would have to choose to impart his brilliance.

"Come on boys, even JT and Zephyr work together to help Rage out. Can't we make like the comic and get along for Brian's sake? I'm sure he'd want you to."

As if we needed to be reminded of *that* little endeavor while we were at it. The very thing that started all of this, that party celebrating that thing. Maybe it started before then, but it blew up at that point. See what I mean when you start tinkering with Brian Kinney's place in the world and start second guessing him? Everything just gets tossed all around.

"Rage doesn't exist anymore." Like hell rage doesn't exist, judging from the controlled temper Michael used to inform us of this supposed development. Personally I don't care if Rage has one issue or ten thousand. I don't really have much intention of reading it either way. It's just not my thing. I wouldn't tell Michael or Justin that, it seems important enough to them. Obviously, because Justin wasn't exactly happy to hear Michael's announcement.

"Since when? Shouldn't we decide together what to do with it?"

He had a point. One plus one equals two, so two creators with equal power equals two votes. It's all very simple, basic math.

"What's the point of continuing? I can't find an illustrator in time for the next issue."

"What if I continued to do the illustrations?" I think Justin might have looked just as ridiculous to Michael as I did to Jimmy Bowman choking on seven olives given Michael's bewildered stare. At least I had the excuse of being high.

"I gave it some thought and it's probably not the best idea, don't you think? I don't want to ruin it, let it go while it's still perfect. I say we just fold it in."

"It was never perfect Michael, but whatever, it's your call. I can't draw without a story."

And that was it, that was the way it all should have ended, very civilized and adultlike. So why the fuck did I feel compelled to open my mouth? Because I accidentally believed for a moment that I could actually offer some sound advice?

"You probably need to do another issue, just to recoup the costs of the first issue. I say put aside your personal differences and work on getting yourselves in the black." Logic, sense, rational thought, ergo peace. I didn't even get a chance to offer the whole olive branch, I barely got a pit and a twig out.

"Teddy, it's none of our business, let them work it out themselves." *Now* Emmett decides to use a little propriety. He's the one who started this!

"You don't understand, Ted." What don't I understand Michael? That you're in love with the kid's boyfriend and this has absolutely nothing to do with Rage, comic books or Ms. Manners big mouth?

"Ted, you're not really helping." Don't worry it wasn't you I was trying to help, Justin.

I give up. No one wants to face the harsh reality that personal feelings have nothing to do with business. Business is numbers and calculating them so they're in the positive, not the negative. If they can't make peace as friends, they better damn well learn how to share the branch as business partners unless they feel like owing several thousand dollars. That's my entire point, but if they insist, by all means let it be personal, just don't come crying to me for a loan.

"I'm gonna go. Can you tell Brian the plumber said to call him tomorrow about the bill?"

He brought us so fucking close, two inches from the door. Two inches away from an escape. Two inches from sanity.

"It was perfect to me, Justin. You just couldn't see that. You always had to try to make it something more. Why is that? What was wrong with it?"

I look at Emmett, who has the good sense to at least be looking away, because Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

"Do you really want an answer to that?"

Oh God. I can hear the branch snap in two. Too bad Brian wasn't walking under it when it fell, then we'd be rid of the problem altogether. I've listened to countless arias and not a single one of them felt as melodramatic as this moment does. Not even the adultresses and murderers. Maybe because I know how they end. I like knowing what's coming. I don't like surprises and unpleasant ones at that. Where's a magic flute to carry me towards destiny and away from this madness when I need one? I don't care how cold and lonely it might be, just take me away from all of this!

I hear the wheels of the door squeak and Brian's voice interrupt, as if on cue. I see my theory has some legs to stand on, because Brian stumbles in accidentally at exactly the wrong moment, seeing nothing but Justin and his mouth agape. He couldn't have planned this if he tried. It had to be an accident.

"Just the person I wanted to see." He sounds... happy? Brian? Happy?

Normally it's kind of kinky to watch Brian almost brand Justin when they kiss. I get some kind of pleasure from knowing Brian is at the mercy of some flighty teenager. I couldn't have asked for better poetic justice than to have him fall for someone more fickle than he is. Brian couldn't handle an adult, Justin's just about his speed and exactly what he deserves as karmic retribution.

Today, however, is not one of those kinky moments. I don't know who's more horrified at Brian's timing, Michael, Justin or me. Emmett is eating up every minute. I wonder why he's not interested in the opera? It's right up his alley.

Brian finally releases a stupefied Justin from his mouth, and he does this thing that I don't think we were ever supposed to see. He kind of brushes his thumb on Justin's lips, as if to close them, sort of shyly proud that he's left him stunned. I try not to watch out of the corner of my eye, but it's beguiling. I need a drink. I need the room to stop spinning. We've upset the Gods and Brian Kinney and now we're all going to pay. This is why we never should have attempted this surprise in the first place, because *surprise* it just keeps backfiring in our faces.

Brian finally turns and notices that he has uninvited company. Uninvited, unrequited... unbelievable, that's what this all is. And Michael, poor Michael, he looks like he's about to become *un*done. It's one thing to think about possibilities... it's another to be slapped in the face with reality. He recovers quickly, I'll give him that.

"Why do you all look like those petrified mummies they store in tombs?"

I have a new theory I'm working on. If the road to self-discovery starts with an accident, then it ends when you plow yourself right into a brick wall.

Much to my chagrin, I hear a weak sound escape my lips.

"Surprise!"

Where's a jar of olives when I need them?


	32. Technicolor

If they ever handed out the award for Most Pathetic Man Alive, I'm convinced that Ted could even out-pity the most pitiful and not even place in first or second. He'd be pathetic enough to take third, or maybe not even place at all. The fact that Ted is the only one talking, as if the rest of them have all been rendered speechless and cast as statues, doesn't bode well for my original plan for this evening. All I wanted to do was come home after the day from hell, eat a little dinner, have a glass of wine, argue with Justin about the air conditioner, because I just know he hasn't let that go, take a shower, eventually talk him into taking it and tip him for waiting for the plumber for me with a deposit in his mouth. Just a nice, relaxing night to prepare myself for the meeting with the guys from Brown Tech.

Instead, I get Justin the stiff, unmoving Tinman, Michael the confused, scattered Scarecrow, Ted the feckless Lion and of course Aunty Em as Dorothy, as she lives and breathes, without the gingham. Which would, I guess, make me what? The wizard? How apropos he was a fraud too, wasn't he?

Whatever this is I'm sure it would be much more enjoyable if I had a few mushrooms and started imagining munchkins and flying monkeys.

"Would someone like to tell me what's going on?" I ask, in a half sweet, half threatening voice. No one moves an inch. I don't think anyone takes so much as a breath. "You," I nudge Justin a step, "speak." I can feel his shoulder tense and reject my touch.

"Nothing... nothing's going on. I was just leaving." I believe that as much as I believe that if I click my heels together three times, I'll be magically transported back home, to the backroom of Babylon. He gestures as if he really is going to exit, but I grab the collar of his t-shirt and put him back in his place. I don't let go.

"Michael, would you like to explain?" I can see Emmett is bursting to speak, but I ignore him, because I know whatever version of events he has to tell me would involve the flying monkeys coming out of someone's ass.

"Just like Justin said, nothing." I start walking towards the kitchen, Justin's neck at my mercy, his feet trailing behind me with as much defiance as he can conjure up in this position.

"That's two nothings and one surprise. Do I have to drop a house on your heads for an answer?" Fuck that, the Wicked Witch was always the most interesting character.

"Well Rage it goes like this," Ted pipes up in that weirdly smug tone he's had lately, "your two sidekicks here are too busy fighting with each other to watch your back or to save the rest of Gayopolis. If they don't get it together soon the evil Mr. Taxman is going to demolish what's left. I've been trying to tell them that, they're not listening."

Great, now we've moved on from some high school production of an obviously acid-laced moral farce to fucking cartoons.

"Forget this, okay? I didn't come here to argue with anyone. We just came to see if you wanted to go to Babylon, but if you have other plans..." Michael shifts his stance uncomfortably.

"I don't have other plans." I feel Justin turn his neck away from my knuckles and I loosen my grip slightly, but keep him fastened to me. "But I'm not going anywhere until someone explains what the fuck Ted is talking about."

"It doesn't concern you," Michael spits out, unexpectedly. "It's between me and Justin, and it's over now anyway, so it doesn't matter."

I turn and cock an expectant eyebrow in Justin's direction. He continues to look away. I realize now, I've walked in just as the tornado was about to blow its way through, and we're on the verge of being uprooted out of the simplicity of black and white and slammed right into the bright, garish Technicolor disaster of our nightmares. I dread it, but I ask it anyway. "Justin is there something you'd like to add?"

He reaches for my hand, pulling it off his collar, and moves away from me, staring right through Michael in a way I've never seen. "I have nothing I want to add. I just want to go home."

You're already there. I snap my neck and look around as if someone else put the thought in my head. He looks miserable and for once I'm not responsible, yet somehow I'm left feeling worse. I look over at Michael who shares a similar expression and I have to concede the point that Ted might be a little more useful than I originally thought.

"So this is about Rage? What's the problem? Did you run out of ideas? Out of money? What?"

"Rage doesn't exist anymore." Justin adds simply, quietly. And it's just wrong, he's all wrong. When did he become so resigned to things? Since the Wicked Witch of the West snatched the heart right out of his tin chest, apparently.

"You mean to tell me I went to all that trouble and spent all that money, so the two of you could throw in the towel after one fucking issue?" I can feel the splashes of dizzying color begin to flash before my eyes, red mostly. "And don't tell me it doesn't concern me Michael. The minute I signed off on all those expenses it became my concern."

"Why are you and Ted so hung up on the money thing? Who cares about the money? Can't you see these poor boys are having a hard enough time with this very painful decision? Am I the only one that can see that?"

We all look in Emmett's direction at once. He basks in the glow of his starring role in the drama of our lives. The fairy godmother, emphasis on fairy, come to rescue us all.

"I never wanted Rage to be perfect. I just wanted him to get better with each issue. I'm sorry you thought I was wrong to want that Michael." I hear the wind from Emmett's sails begin to deflate as whatever air in the room begins to circulate around Justin's small voice behind us. He has this way of being full and alive in technicolor lights without ever blinding anyone. Without ever blinding me. I don't have to adjust my eyes in order to look at him and see all the added dimensions a little color brings to the previously black and white film stock of my fucking life.

"He's a goddamn superhero Justin. You don't get much more better than that," Michael responds so earnestly, that I can almost see Justin's armor begin to melt.

"He's a man first, Michael. Remember? The ad exec by day, defender of queers by night? Every man has flaws."

Especially the impressionable ones that let themselves fall for the biggest scam artist of them all, the Wizard. He keeps the one thing you want stored away, totally out of your reach. When you've finally earned it, he drifts away using some hot air and takes it with him. Meanwhile, you're left standing there trying to find some way to still have it. You never even realized you had the power all along.

And you chose black and white. Do you know how much I fucking hate that? You're so much better in technicolor.

I feel the beginnings of a headache forming behind my eyes. My sensory devices are on overload.

"I guess saving JT was Rage's biggest flaw."

Michael's voice is trapped in my mind, in some weird vortex between the entire world crashing in my ears at once and deadly silence.

"Fuck! Fuck! Justin, fuck... I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Shit. I just meant..." He picks through the random pieces of straw in his mind frantically searching for a better explanation. "I just meant that what happened afterwards, getting involved with him. Loving him. That's his tragic flaw," he sputters out. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

I must have taught him well, because his face is a pale, blank slate. "We never got that far, Michael. Now we probably never will. He'll remain forever perfect to you. Zephyr will always be his best friend and JT will always be some random kid he had to save once upon a time."

I watch Justin drop his eyes to his feet and I want to lift him up, out of this place, out of this moment. Whatever it takes for him to realize I won't let him wish himself back to some dull, uncomplicated, dishwater colored existence. That's not where he belongs.

"I don't give a shit what the two of you have to do. You're going to work this out and you're going to do it in time to get the next issue done."

"No, we're not," Justin answers, defiantly. "Some things can't be worked out because you snap your fingers and want it done."

"Yes it can. It's as simple as that. If you decide you can end it that easily then you can work it out that easily. You make the decision, you snap your fucking fingers, click your heels together three times, whatever the fuck you have to do and you make it happen."

Christ it really is that simple isn't it? Just the decision to move backwards, stand still or move forward.

"Since when do you give up that easily, Justin?" I think I might actually be as close to pleading with him as I'll ever get. I won't let him shrivel into nothing because of some cold splash of reality hitting him in the face, because I know how tempting the easy way out must seem to him right now.

"And you," I turn back to a remorseful Michael "do you remember how upset you were when they killed Captain Astro? Now you want to kill Rage before he even gets a chance to live? What was the point of creating him in the first place?"

"Brian!" The sound of Emmett's voice startles me. "I think they get the point. Calm down. You're not going to solve anything tonight." Aunty Em, the voice of reason.

"I think we should go back to Plan A. Babylon. It's thong night. I'm sure we can find much better ways to torture ourselves there." And Ted, the yapping Toto.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Michael insists. "C'mon, we'll all go and relax. Justin? Come with us. We'll have a couple of drinks, make fun of a few guys. Talk some more? It'll be like old times."

Justin smiles a tired, worn smile. "That's okay. You guys go, have a good time. But...," he hesitates slightly, "you're right. We should talk some more. Later," he says it to all of us, but looks right at me, as ablaze in brilliant technicolor as he's ever been, even when he's the lights are turned low.

Michael smiles an impish grin. It doesn't take a whole lot to really mollify Michael. That's not such a bad thing. It's one of things we have in common, actually. About the important things at least. It's one of the ways I realize Justin will never be. And I'm so fucking happy about that and petrified of it, all at once.

"Did you want to change first?" Michael asks casually, the tornado long gone in his world.

"Yeah," I mumble to myself, as I watch Justin walk away and towards the door. That's exactly what I want to do. "Justin, wait. Don't go."

As simple as that.

He turns back to me, curious and confused, and trying to suppress his eagerness at being asked to stay. Just the way I always did like him. Anxious to be with me. I didn't realize how much I missed seeing that, until now.

I watch him, even as I ostensibly address the other three. "Justin and I are gonna stay home."

He smiles a real smile and everything that was black and white in the room turns into a technicolor feast in the blink of an eye.

I look at my feet and I realize... I didn't even have to move them once.


	33. Canary

I giggled. It was a distinct sound. Not a laugh, not a chuckle, but a full out giggle. It was my nerves, all I could think to do. It was either choke on the breath I'd been holding, cry, which would have been my second choice, or giggle. So, I giggled. Of course I'm happy. I didn't mean to mock the invitation to stay, but somehow the giggle makes it sound like I don't appreciate his offer. Like I expected it all along and I'd pushed him into giving it. But really, it was just a giggle. He threw me a look that tried to stop it before it morphed into a fit and I tried to suppress it, but the sound just keeps coming out of my mouth. I try to be serious as Michael walks solemnly past me, Ted and Emmett trailing right behind him. I even try to bite my tongue and cause myself some pain, but that just aggravates the situation.

I just keep giggling and my grin is so wide, it must look like I'd swallowed the canary whole without even stopping to chew. Maybe the feathers are tickling the back of my throat as I try to ingest it and they're causing this involuntary reaction.

"What the fuck is so funny?" No words, I have no words. I just try desperately to muffle the sound trying to escape from my throat. "Are you on something?" I shake my head back and forth, pressing my lips together, a tiny snort escaping my nostrils.

Really, what could possibly be funny about this situation? The fact that I almost blew my stack over a comic book of all things? Not particularly funny. The looks on all of our faces when he walked in the door? Okay, that was slightly amusing, but it can't possibly be the cause of my giggling fit or I would have burst out long before this moment.

"Come over here." He crooks his finger at me, expecting me to follow its lead, as he settles warily on a bar stool. And I would, only I can't seem to move my feet in any particular direction that leads towards him and giggle at the same time. It's one or the other and right now giggling is winning out. "You're gonna live to regret it, if you make me come over there and get you."

At that, I burst. My voice sings a loud, long chorus of laughter, my stomach aching from the pain of trying to breathe and my eyes tearing up from the effort to stop myself. It's a magnificent sound and it fills every corner of this large space, reverberating off the walls and echoing back in both of our ears. He gives up his last bastion of seriousness and joins my laughter with a puzzled half smile.

Now I'm sure my grin is so wide, I've grown a tail and I can lick my own ass at will, after a satisfying dinner of canary a la carte.

I stumble with unsteady steps towards him, silencing the sound, but my shoulders still try to steady the vibration of my diaphragm rocking up and down. He reaches a hand out to me, as if to stop me from falling over, but I resist and shrug it off me. Instead I push myself onto him, until I'm almost stretched across his languid frame, and I bury my face in his neck and I just keep laughing. I can feel him move his hands around my back awkwardly, unsure of whether to pull me off or hold me closer. The last time I was holding him up, he was trying not to throw up all over the place. See how much better this is, when you're sober? At the very least, cleaner. I want to tell him that, but there aren't any words. We don't discuss that night or the morning after. In fact, we don't discuss a lot of things. For a moment, that doesn't bother me. There will always be time for discussion. Moments like this just sort of come and go. You have to take them while you can get them.

There's nothing funny about this at all, but it's the greatest feeling I've had in a long time and words can't explain that, but my the trill of voice still can. I can feel his skin recoil from the odd sensation of my vibrating laughter on his throat.

But he doesn't pull away, he just lets me laugh myself into a quiet stupor and that's just the most amazing feeling ever. Better than any orgasm I've ever had, and that's saying a lot.

"Are you done having your nervous breakdown?" The voice in his adam's apple tickles my mouth when he speaks. I try to nod my head under his chin unsuccessfully. I don't want to move. This is exactly the way I want it to feel, like I've lost all of my good sense and it doesn't matter to me, or to him. I want him to revel in it and appreciate the stupidity of it all. I feel his hands travel up my spine to the back of my neck, and I know this moment is about to end... and that's okay. It never lasts more than a few fleeting breaths, but it's worth it when it comes. He pulls my head out from underneath his jaw and studies my face for the briefest of seconds, like he's considering putting it back there and joining me in laughing at nothing at all. Instead he blinks, and looks down the tip of my nose.

"Thank you." I pull back slightly, and he moves his arms from my neck, drops them casually at my waistband, playing with the elastic.

"For not having you committed?" He asks quietly, like he doesn't want the walls around him to hear and throw it back at us.

"Just thank you." I might have stopped laughing, but I won't stop smiling. He regards me with an almost imperceptible nod. If I looked long enough, I'm sure I could figure it all out. But I don't need to, I see what I have to when I look down and realize I'm standing between his legs, and he's crossed his feet behind him, unwilling to let me move.  
"Do you want to tell me what that was really all about?" I feel his fingers graze my belly button and my stomach lurch backwards.

"You're a smart man, I'm sure you can figure it out."

His eyes are like liquid motion, swirling steadily in another direction. I don't have to figure that look out either. I know, I don't need to hear his words. He's got it all sorted out without any help from any of us. Besides I don't want to rehash that business. I just want to be right here, right now. "The only thing I intend to figure out right now is why I'm still in my suit and tie and you're in those ugly sweatpants."

Sometimes he just knows exactly what to say, and when to say it. "Because we haven't had our fight yet and we'd be totally distracted if we were naked," I admonish him with mock seriousness.

"Oh yes, the fight. Well, have at it." He grins, his gaze evil and enchanting. I swear I can see the blood of the poor little canary dribbling from his mouth.

"You're a shithead who totally ignored what I asked you to do."

"I know." He at least attempts to look half remorseful, in between grins.

"And you never ask my opinion about things."

"That's a terrible, selfish trait, just terrible. You really shouldn't waste your time with someone so thoughtless."

"You just do what you want to do and it really gets on my nerves."

"And given your obvious delicate nervous condition, that was a bad decision that I will, no doubt, eternally and profoundly regret." His words might be mocking, but his hands are all serious business, feeling their way down the front of my pants, palming my underwear clad sack in his hand.

"And you think you can solve everything by distracting me with sex." And if my eyes starting to roll into the back of my head are any indication, he's right.

"Which devalues and debases your intrinsic masculine need to assert yourself as my equal, independent of me. Have I missed anything?"

I stopped thinking rationally and stopped hearing anything at all, somewhere around 'debases' or thereabouts. "I was thinking more like, it gets me horny as hell and I can't think straight when I'm like that."

"So are we finished fighting? Do we get to the making up now?"

I want to give him a serious tongue lashing... scratch that, he'd enjoy that too much... I just want him to know that I'm serious, that I don't appreciate his decision making, but how the hell do I tell him that when he's just decided to throw everyone else out and stay here with me? God, sometimes he leaves me absolutely no choice or ground to stand on. Fuckhead. I won't forget the real point and his reaction tells me that he knows that. Sooner or later we will have this out. Just not this very minute because neither of us can concentrate long enough to do it now. Especially since he's started doing that curling thing with his fingertips at the base of my balls, I honestly wouldn't give a shit if he'd decided to sell me to a band of roving gypsies, just as long as he doesn't stop doing that. Just the thought of him is enough to soak my brain into intoxication.

I lean my face close to his, matching his vaguely obscene grin, tracing my thumbs on the outline of his jaw and I kiss his mouth like I've never had the pleasure before. It all feels new, though I've felt his hands a thousand times and kissed him countless more. I want to close my eyes, but they're trained on automatic open, watching the globes of his eyes travel back and forth between closed lids, as if he's searching in the darkness underneath them, trying to bring up the picture of what our mouths entwined must look like in his mind. I wish he could see what I'm seeing, because it's a sight I've missed for too long. I like to watch him kiss sometimes, he doesn't know that, but I do. His mouth is relaxed, his eyes always start out pensive, darting back and forth, but they relax as my tongue delves deeper and he can let himself go. I could probably kiss him for hours, but I can feel the tightness in his muscles and I know he won't last long in this position, supporting me. I don't want him to support me, he's got enough tension.

I pull away from his mouth and his lips follow mine unconsciously, not ready for us to end just yet.

"How about a massage?" I offer. His eyes alight in appreciative surprise. I just have this sudden urge to relax his entire body. I know... I don't know how, but I just know that for all his bluster and all of his attempts at diffusing so many situations at once, that he's wound up like a tight fist, spoiling for a place to land. He doesn't have to say it, I just know it. I can feel it, in my hands.

"How about we get to the naked part first?"

I roll my eyes and step out of his legs, dragging him out of the stool with both hands. "You can get as naked as you want. I'm pretty comfortable."

"You're just scared you'll accidentally slip yourself into the wrong pocket." He tugs his tie and shirt off, kicking his shoes to the side as he walks towards the bed, saving the best for last.

"Yeah, your ear is kind of small. I don't want to cause any permanent damage."

He looks askance at me over his shoulder, making a show of dragging his pants and underwear down slowly and bending over, flexing his ass to adjust the pillows until they fit to his liking, before he lies on the bed and waits to be serviced. Like he'd ever let me do that on a regular basis. He's right, if I took my pants off now, the only knot I'd be working out would be the one buried up his ass. I take my shirt off instead.

I climb onto his back and start with his shoulders, kneading and rubbing the skin and muscle at my fingertips. He lays with his head to the side, eyes closed, lips almost pouting. For a minute, he looks like he might have known what it was to be innocent once, many, many centuries ago. His shoulders seem to carry the burden of every sin he's committed since then, they're so tense and thick in my hands. His muffled sighs tell me he's enjoying his treatment and that makes the smile creep back onto my face.

"You're right. I like the way the pants feel on my back," he mumbles half to me, half to the pillow under his mouth.

"I'm always right." I pinch the skin of his spine gently. "So what do I get for being so understanding and giving and so... *so* right all the time?"

"You get me not bending your cock into a pretzel for being such an arrogant little shit."  
"You can do better than that," I use my hands to ease the tension and the dulcet tones of my voice to open the door without ruining the mood. "If I'm willing to take the air conditioner without so much as an argument, for now..." I emphasize the point by jutting my knuckle right into his bone, "then I should at least get a little something in return."

"Oh that's fucking priceless," his back jerks with a slight laugh. "I buy you an air conditioner so you don't drop dead from heatstroke and I'm the one who owes you something? I see they haven't taught you the concept of fair trade at that fine institution you call a place for higher learning."

I work my way to his lower back, digging my thumbs into his joints and around the discs of his spine. He feels like he's unspooling in my hands. "I'd say this is a pretty fair trade. Besides, I don't give a shit about the air conditioner. You *know* it's not about the air conditioner."

We both pause in silence. There really aren't very many words that are necessary in life, just an occasional one here or there. "What do you want?"

I bend and lower a kiss on the spot I just massaged. "I want a date and a sleepover at my place."

He considers the offer briefly. "I'll give you a sleepover."

"Nope. It's gotta be both."

"I suppose I'd be the one paying for this little excursion?" And sometimes you just say the wrong words to avoid saying what you really ought to be saying.

Of course he probably believes that he'd be paying for the rest of his life, if he gave in at the moment, but I don't let it stop me. I'm way too close. My voice has failed me too often, I won't squander the one chance I have, when he's a totally captive audience. "No I asked, I'll pay. Just don't expect anything fancy."

"How about I save you some money? Dinner and a sleepover."

"A dinner *date* and a sleepover." It's just important to me, okay? It just is.  
"What the hell difference does it make what we call it?"

Every bit and none at all.

"Because I've never been on an actual date." Surely, when he was innocent for half a minute once upon a time, even he wanted that much. Now is his chance to have it. I try to impress that with my hands on the back of his thighs. "The closest I came was taking Daphne to the prom and look how that turned out."

And sometimes you just say the wrong thing altogether.

"A dinner date and a sleepover, don't make me regret it." I stretch out across his back, discarding my sweatpants along the way, while trying to keep the infectious giggle rising in my throat to an absolute minimum. "I'm *not* letting you fuck me."

I clamp my teeth onto his ear, trying to get him to reconsider. I feel like an eager pony waiting to run the Kentucky Derby, but he's the one with the whip, and when he rolls me over onto my back, practically crushing me under his weight, I see my hopes for the winner's circle fade right in front of me. "Why not?" I ask weakly, feeling his ass pin my semi-hard cock to my stomach and it's not a pleasurable feeling.

"Because that's not what I'm in the mood for. I just want to fuck the shit out of you." No questions, no expectations otherwise. Simple fact.

He finally relents and pushes himself off of me.

"Can I at least be on top?" I try to bargain, to no avail.

He doesn't say a word, just slithers over me, until his knees are fastened on either side of me and his hands grip mine and hold them steady near my head. I don't care if I'm on top, bottom, sideways or upside down when I look up at his face and see the serious business of one disgustingly beautiful, fucking horny man waiting for me to shut up. I don't even attempt to open my mouth again.

His hands massage my wrists and his body motions along my chest sliding his way towards my mouth. He teases me with his tongue and pulls back away from me, repeating this motion over and over, slipping a little deeper into the kiss each time. He doesn't close his eyes, he just watches, fixing his gaze on my steady focus. Were it not for the slight friction of his body rubbing against mine, I wouldn't even know he was moving above me, his movements are so slick. I don't even feel his hands release my wrists, they feel held captive in their position by some imaginary restraint. It's the cool feeling of his thumb drenched in lubricant at my ass that jolts me out of my meditation. There's something so calming about his motions, something so assured and possessed. I feel the tip of his latex covered cock brush my ass and just as I'm about to settle into place, closing my eyes and waiting, he jerks my thighs so quickly and steadily towards his cock, impaling me on him so unexpectedly and forcefully I let out a moan louder than any canary has ever sung. He's unkind and patient, unyielding and focused, thoughtless and thoughtful as he pulls me onto him and shrugs me off over and over, his ass barely moving an inch. I'm not sure who's doing the fucking anymore, I just know I can no longer see straight. The vision in front of me is blurred with a mix of sweat rolling off my forehead and condensation forming on my eyelashes. It hurts a little, but mostly it feels like an empty space I didn't know needed to be filled so thoroughly, as he expands and engorges my ass with every stroke.

When he shoots, his body shudders and his voice stutters hot breath on my neck, as he collapses on my aching cock. That brief touch is enough to make me explode underneath him.

I feel his forehead undulate briefly from the effort, before it settles, sated and satisfied underneath my chin, and his thighs collapse like jelly on my legs.

I don't let out a sound. I've heard it all.


	34. Transparent Human Being

I killed myself once. There was no messy blood involved. No tears. There wasn't even sadness. It was just a simple unadorned death. I told myself to stop breathing, told my brain to stop functioning and the blood to stop pumping through my organs. Amazingly enough my body listened. It just shut itself down. No muss, no fuss. If I had the choice on how to die again, that would be the way I'd want to go. I'd just stop... being.

It only lasted for a few seconds. It must have been a malfunction with the respirator that caused it. A momentary lapse of judgment. Wrong call, not your time yet, that was just a test run. You failed. A harbinger of things to come. You will always fail, that's what it was telling me. Of course I wasn't really awake to start with, but I'm sure I was dead in that moment.

It's true what they say, you do look outside of yourself when you die. You gain this sight that goes beyond seeing. It's like reading braille that's imprinted on your brain. The human condition and human code is yours for the taking . You see by touching. You touch by feeling. So ultimately, what you see is what you feel and what you feel is whatever your mind decides to see. And if you see death when you look, you'll forever retreat and mourn. If you see life, you'll reach out and want to grab hold of it. 

If you see what I saw you'd die a million little deaths.

I didn't really mean to die that day. I actually meant to live. As much living as I'm allowed. I meant to strengthen my resolve, resist my urges, open up my palm and let go of the grip I had on the railing that separates life and death. I wanted him to die that day, not in actuality, if only in my mind, just enough so that the separation would be easier. I'd shrug his fingers off the fine metal of the rail and I'd meet him on the other side when my time had come.

Only I held on. And I pulled him with me. That's what saved my life, saving his.

I should have let go.

I looked down and realized his hand was nowhere near my own, it was curled in a weak, defeated semi-fist. That should have been it, my skin should have bristled on the cold metal and retreated. I watched my hand move under the railing, so as not to tempt fate, as if I could just sneak over to life for a moment and then quietly pretend I'd never been there. Fall back into a graceful, small death and let him live. But the machine had stopped and the alarm had gone off and I panicked. I dug my way into his small fist and I straightened his fingers to give them the appearance of strength and slipped my own through them. I held his hand, held my breath waiting for the machine to repair itself, to give him back life.

But in that moment that felt like a lifetime, I'm sure we were both dead. The world ended and when the dust had settled, I hadn't let him go. I'd held on.

When I looked around, outside of myself, all I saw was transparency.

Everything was clear. I could see right through it all. Right through all the things that normally block my vision, my head, my heart, reality, shadows, his imagination, all of these things. I could see through him, through myself. It was scarier than anything I'd ever imagined was lurking in pitch black darkness, because it was all too apparent. What I had done wrong, what I should have done, how we'd gotten there, it was all staring me in the face. I looked right through it's transparent face and I saw a broken boy clinging to life, barely holding onto the clammy hand of a broken, dead man. Saw him counting on me to protect him once again, when I'd failed at it so thoroughly already. It took all my reserves to give him back his life.

That's when I made the decision. It was his life or my own, and I'd gladly give mine up to him, fill him with it and move back into my empty shell.

Only I'd gone under the railing, instead of over and some silly, desperate part of me was convinced that had made all the difference. Somehow I could cheat my way through death, as much I'd cheated my way through life. I'd crossed under the bridge, not over it, surely no one would notice.

I resolved then, that it would be okay to let him continue to live on, in some capacity, in my mind. Just as long as I didn't have to watch. I could slink back to pitch black darkness, block my vision and wait.

But I hadn't let go, and the machine had stopped beeping that interminable death knell. His breathing was even, and I felt weak fingers bend my own and curl to another fist, resting comfortably in my hand.

It was the first movement he'd made on his own, in the three days he'd been lying there.

And I knew he was going to live.

And so was I.

Without him.

I died that day. Whatever was me died in that moment. I came out on the other side, still breathing, barely living, but alive. Whatever was good in me, I'd given him and because he is who is he is, a selfless, selfish, obnoxious, resolute young man, he spared a little for me. Just enough to keep me grasping with fingertips.

This strange buzzing sound wound its way through the corridors and I realized it was three pairs of footsteps tapping on the linoleum floors, running towards his door. The death knell had sounded a call to arms and they were there to respond. They must have been moving quickly, but everything felt like permanent delay. Just give me one more moment, one more second, anything, before I need to let go.

They were dainty fingers that removed me from his tentative grasp. I didn't mention the movement. I stepped back and let them check all systems. Everything seemed in working order. None of them had the sight to see beyond, to see the transparent ghosts of all that was wrong. I'd only had it for a moment and it told me everything I needed to know.

They left first. I followed. I walked out slowly, exhaling on the inhale and inhaling on the exhale.

Someone was concerned about my shortness of breath and I couldn't find the words to explain that it was because I'd just returned from death, his, my own. Doesn't matter. It was all gone. Breathing was optional at that point.

It was a long walk towards the two heavy doors at the end of the hall, made no easier by dizzy, exhausted steps. I walked past two rows of them, some on the left, some on the right divided by some imaginary line, those that would pick me up if I fell, and those who'd walk right over my limp, lifeless body.

I could hear footsteps trailing behind me, voices calling my name. Didn't I want to know how he was, where was I going, when would I be back? Never, I'd never go back. I'd never step foot in that room again. I knew how he was, I'd seen right through him and I was going where I should have gone from the very beginning. Away from him.

I didn't stop to explain myself. I kept walking, filling my lungs with breath, playing with the lining of the silk at my fingertips, feeling the hard crust of his life spilled all over it.

I would never look back. Never look at that moment again. Not as it actually existed, only as I'd fashioned it.

I would never watch him die in my mind. He would always be alive, the rest would just be an aberration. Something my mind had made up. When I died that day, it all died with me.

I'm sure I'd convinced myself of that, at some point.

The doors approached and the Exit sign blinked one last brilliant shine and went dull, extinguishing itself before I reached the end. There was no more Exit, there were only two doors. I walked through, the sun singeing my untrained pupils. I walked, oblivious to the chill, but for the feel of silk encasing my fingertips, trapping me in warmth, reminding me that I needed some if I was resolved to continue living. I walked until I found the familiar black puddle of indifferent functionality. It was a tool and as long as it worked, nothing else mattered. Whatever blackness hides, as long as it works, nothing else matters. How easy it was to climb into the familiar seat, stare out the same transparent glass window, look in the same rearview mirror and see empty space behind me. Only there was sun that morning, not some imaginary replacement resting on his contented face, and I was in the place that gave him life, not brought him death. The only one who'd died that morning was me.

I drove with no sound, no heat, no air. The windows rolled up, the top covering my head, my hands steering in the vague direction of home, and I think I might have cried, because my vision got blurry and my neck was wet, and I know there was no rain. It was a perfectly spectacular day. A beautiful day to find peace in mourning.

I faced the cold, metal door as I stepped off the elevator, unimpressed by it's stature. Designed specifically to keep the fortress intact, you couldn't see in and you couldn't see out, and you could never get past it without great effort. It suddenly seemed heavier than it had ever felt before. It took me three tugs to slide it far enough for me to slip past. Not many people could get past the little space I allowed for my long, thin frame to enter. He could, he was small and compact enough.

But he wouldn't. Not any longer. I would make sure of it.

That was the price I'd pay. If he lived, then I died. A nice, clear exchange. But I'd gone under the railing, somehow he'd pulled me under, and he'd come through with a little life left for me and now it was all too jumbled and misunderstood. I was supposed to stay dead.

When I laid back on the bed that morning, spent with exhaustion and unable to unbutton my shirt further than the five buttons I'd managed, I felt the silk caress my skin under the flaps of the shirt. Felt his life slide all over my chest as I rolled onto my stomach and slept for countless hours.

It was the only night I stayed away.

I carried him with me wherever I went, whatever life of his that I was allowed to be a part of, I wore around my neck. I pretended it was my own. Pretended I was still living the life that died that morning. I used him like I'd used him so many times in the past, to remind myself that I was still alive, for better or for worse.

I walked through those doors, night after night, but not that room. Never again, never that room. I'd given him enough, all of me, and there was nothing more of me to give. Half alive and half dead, I was useless to him. I was just relearning how to live for myself, what could I do for him?

I slammed the door to the fortress closed the first time he came. That wasn't part of the deal. I died and he lived. I couldn't ask him to live half a life, surrounded by pitch black darkness, but he cheated as much as I did. I opened it up and invited him in the second time, against my better judgment. But the lines were blurred, they always had been and we'd somehow become sickly dependent on one other to keep giving each other some bastardized form of life. We'd made a pact, he wouldn't let me die and I would let him live. I failed. I should have heeded the warning of that respirator. I couldn't simply let him live his life, like I should have, he had to die a little death with his eyes closed and no hope of seeing the transparent human being he was bartering his life for. And I made sure he suffered for that mistake in judgment. Made sure I'd suffered for the mistake in my own, for holding on and opening that door.

But the exit had sputtered out before either of us could reach our intended ending.

There was just walking through open doors, with no locks, ignoring the voices of the well meaning beyond us, behind us, all around us.

When you lose one sense, the rest should become more acute, and they did after we lost the ability to see what was right in front of us, to see through each other. His voice rose up in his head and it was all he could hear. My touch became cold and indifferent, sometimes separated by a third body altogether or it touched too much when skin was not what he wanted to feel. We sniffed like dogs for evidence that the shaky pact we made that morning still existed. He would help me live and I wouldn't let him die, or I would let him live and he wouldn't let me die... I don't even know for sure anymore. It changes every time I try to recall the moment. The only thing that doesn't change is that he never dies. Never. He never suffers either. He's always fully alive, even when he's not moving.

I'm the only one who needed a rescue then.

The dream is always the same. I always reach the end of the hall and the doors are locked, the walls close in and the space gets smaller and smaller and my chest gets heavier and heavier and voices keep getting louder and louder and everything fades to black. That's when I wake up.

I had the dream again. But the doors opened this time and all that was there was a neverending hall in front of me. I closed them and went to turn back. He moved then. I must not have been entirely asleep, somewhere on the precipice between awake and dreaming, because just the slightest shift woke me from my half conscious state.

I can see him through the faint blue lights above our heads. I can see right through him. It doesn't scare me the way it did that morning. It's just settling into dark outside and he's just settling into the deepest stages of sleep. I watch him relax and curve the slope of his body so that it fits right next to mine, as if it was never gone.

His hand curls gently on my stomach and I reach out instinctively for it and watch our tangled joints rise and fall in unison with every breath I take.

I exhale slowly before I release his hand and reach for the duvet and cover us both from the draft.

I turn towards him, close my eyes and sink into everything that is his being.

It's warm there.


	35. Rust

Yeah, so we're late. Big deal. We're always late. There's nothing new about that. I'm already prepared to have a nice, unused asshole ripped for me. That's fine, I can always use a spare for when Justin feels like experimenting... I'm sure I'll be blamed for keeping them all waiting. I get blamed for everything else, may as well take the punishment for this one as well. They'll just hammer and pound that rusty, old nail into my head about responsibility and setting an example, like I haven't heard it enough times to have it memorized word for word. I won't tell them why we're really late, tell them it's not really my fault. They wouldn't believe me anyway, so why bother? Besides, they don't need to know Justin has decided now is as good a time as any to drop that common sense thing that's been plaguing him for so long.

What little of it he has left that is. He lost most of it a long time ago. Right around the same moment he decided life with me would be a good risk to take. Not fucking likely! He insists that he knows what he's doing and doesn't need me to explain or demonstrate... repeatedly... what a mistake that particular choice was. If he wants to take those kinds of chances, I'm not going to keep the gun from his head when he's playing Russian Roulette. I just have to remember to empty the bullets from the barrel before he starts firing. That's easier said than done.

Finally, after what seems like the longest drive of my entire life, we turn the corner towards the Muncher Manse of Mirth. I can see bodies milling about in the windows of the house from halfway down the block. It's like watching someone else's life, from the sidewalk, safe and warm inside, some place I shouldn't be allowed. I should always be on the outside looking in. I see Gus' nearly abandoned swing set in the backyard as we approach the house in silence. It's getting a little corroded, spots of rust appearing on the corners, weathered down from the harsh Pitts winters. I was no help in putting it together and certainly no help in maintaining it. Why bother? He never took much interest in it, beyond it's initial new toy glean. It's just taking up space these days. One day it'll just erode until it's nothing but flakes of metal scattered in the yard and no one will even notice.

Maybe Justin is right, maybe it wouldn't be that difficult to leave certain things behind. Everyone would still be safe and content in their lives. The lives they've built for themselves behind closed doors. Maybe it's better to leave before you become just a passing stranger.

He kills the engine a little further down the block than I thought he would, even though there's a space closer to the house. I undo my seatbelt, expecting him to do the same, but he doesn't move an inch.

"Are you coming?"

"I'll meet you inside." He stares straight ahead, both hands on the wheel, as if he might make a getaway the moment I exit the car.

"Nice... leave me to face the she-wolves alone to get ripped to pieces. You're not getting away that easy. I need your boyish charm to help get me out of this one. C'mon let's go." I command as I reach for the handle of the door and still he makes no movement.

"Go. I'll be there in a minute. I promise." Well at least I know he's not planning on taking off for parts unknown. When Justin promises something, it's as close to a blood oath as I'm going to get.

"Please don't tell me you're having another fucking breakdown. Even *you* can't be that ridiculous," I chide him. I expect a sneer, a roll of the eyes, anything. All I get are two very focused, very hard eyes staring at the street in front of him. "What are you waiting for?"

As soon as I ask the question, I see the answer, about ten yards in front of us. A little rust-colored head looks back and forth for oncoming traffic before making the trip across the street. She's like a little lady, her head held high, taking perfect, careful steps. Her small hands hold an awkwardly shaped gift wrapped package. She looks back, just once, before continuing on to the front door.

"There's Molly," he mumbles to himself.

"I kind of figured that out on my own. Thanks." He doesn't even notice my bait dangling right in front of him. "I thought she wasn't coming to this party, no kids and all?"

"She's not. She wanted to drop my gift off yesterday, but since I was sick my mother said she would bring it for her. My mom must have forgotten to take it."

"So? What's the big deal? Don't you want to see your sister? She went to all the trouble to bring you your present. And don't tell me you don't care about presents." At that, he gives me the slightest of reactions, barely shifting his eyes heavenward for the strength to carry on. I might not be handy with a swing set, but I sure as hell know how to handle a hammer.

"I'm not getting out of this car." I follow his fixated gaze towards a double parked, four door, sensible family car. Right towards the biggest disgrace to the concept of family, this side of Jack fucking Kinney.

"Don't let him do this to you..." I know he already has.

"God, do you know the kind of tantrum Molly must have thrown to get him to drive her here to drop that off? I can hear him now," he gets a twisted grin on his face, "'I'm not letting my daughter near that house of perversion.' He can't even get out of the car. He must really hate me."

"It's his loss. Besides... he doesn't hate you." I shrug my shoulders and feel my head nodding to reaffirm the thought.

"How do you figure *that*?" he asks, skeptically.

"You're his son, that doesn't just go away, isn't that something you've tried to drill into my head over and over again?" I offer, as if it really is just that simple. We both know it's not, and I can feel my lungs squeeze together tightly as I wait for him to refute the thought.

"Maybe you're right, maybe he doesn't hate me. But he doesn't even care and that's, like, a thousand times worse." He speaks from the voice of experience, long fought and hard earned experience. "I'd rather he hate me."

I'm almost afraid to ask. "Why?"

"Because the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference, right? At least if he hated me now, I'd know it's because he used to love me once." That tells me so much more than I ever wanted to know. So much more than I want to think about at the moment. I'd rather concentrate on puncturing Craig's eyeball with my hammer and a rusty nail.

Every. Time. Every. Single. Time. It doesn't matter how many months, how many years now, go by. The wound just scabs over until the itch becomes unbearable and he peels it off and starts bleeding all over again.

"Forget him. He's not worth it." Like he's forgotten you. Bastard. "Let's just go inside. Everybody is waiting for us."

"He's my father Brian." For him, it's just that simple. It's why he lets himself get hurt over and over again, by people he should be protecting himself from. I'd like nothing more than to just hate Craig, but owing him some sick debt of gratitude for the example he's set prevents me from doing that. If he can't even hate his father, it's next to impossible to imagine him ever really hating me.

The thought that he could one day learn Craig's indifference isn't one I want to dwell on. The thought that he could learn it from me is even less of one.

"So then go knock on the window and say hi and invite him over for tea and scones. Do whatever the fuck you want. I'm going inside." I huff and puff and blow my passenger door open, a cold gust of wind hitting my profile. I don't really mean it, he knows I don't mean it, at least I think he does. But I won't indulge this particular pity party. He's had more than enough for one day and they far exceeded my limitations about two hours ago.

And I just don't know what to say or do to make this hurt any less.

I take my time fiddling with the seatbelt, waiting for the string of expletives to escape his mouth. Sometimes I rile him up on purpose, because I know how easy it is for him to slide into inaction when things get to be too much for him. He feels comfortable there. First he goes silent and then he just goes away. Crawls into himself, into his art, into whatever route that lets him escape quickly and easily. That's still the worst part about the whole thing. He got his hand back slowly and surely, but the fight in him was permanently changed, and not for the better.

If it were up to him, he'd just stay immobile and unnoticed. I won't let him do that. Won't let him decay into corroded flakes floating in the wind right in front of my eyes.

I climb out of the jeep and stretch my legs. It's dusk now but I can feel Craig's beady eyes from 30 feet and opposite sides of the street travel along my spine. I'm sure this was exactly what he was trying to avoid. Well fuck him. I lean my hands on the roof of the car and duck my head into the open space, prepared to physically drag him out if necessary. "Stop acting like a fucking child. Open the door, get out of the car and show him the kind of man you've become. Show him who he's missed out on knowing." I *will* *not* let him do this.

I'm stopped by the stricken look on his face. He looks almost as pale as he did when he walked in the door the other night. Only I know it's not a virus that's causing this, it's the exceptionally brilliant way I go about handling him. Maybe Justin has the right idea about a lot of things. I watch him hesitate before he reaches for the seatbelt that ties him to his seat. He gets as far as undoing it. It's a step in the right direction at least.

"Let me just wait until he leaves," he suggests. "I want to enjoy this birthday. I don't want him to ruin it for me."

"He can't if you don't let him. Besides, Molly is going to walk back out of that house soon. The minute she sees me, she's going to head straight to you. You can't avoid this. No matter how much you might want to."

And I know he does. He's a tough kid, he can withstand a lot and still stand tall, if a little weathered and rusted from the beating. He shouldn't have to, but he can. Sometimes he just doesn't want to, and I don't blame him for that. You shouldn't have to fight so hard for every little scrap.

You really shouldn't. No one should.

"Why did you let me think my father wanted to help support me all that time?"

Ouch. I can feel the blister of pain from that particular scab being pulled again. Not one of my finer mistakes. If he didn't hate me after finding out about that stunt, I'm fairly certain there's not much else I could do to make him hate me. Except break his heart. Which I may or may not be succeeding at avoiding, depending on the time of day. "Because that's what you wanted to believe."

"You know I don't buy that. I never have. You don't do things just because I want them. You don't do *anything* just because it's something someone wants." There's no recrimination or bitterness in that statement. It's just fact. I'm not easy. He knows that and he stays anyway. Maybe I misjudged, maybe there's fight left in him, yet. "You did it because you know what it feels like to want a father who doesn't want you. In your own stupid, fucked up way, you didn't want me to feel like that. It took me a while to figure that out."

He thinks he has it *all* figured out. He probably does. "What's your point? That's not moving your ass out of this car any quicker."

"My point is you can stop protecting me. I know what you're doing and I appreciate it, but it's not necessary. I'm not going to fall apart because he's across the street. I just don't want to deal with him today."

I almost believe him. I think he almost believes it himself. But I know him, no matter what anyone else might think, I know all of him. I can see the tension on his face and the false smile pretending to be okay with this, pretending to be stronger than he actually feels. It's the lying to yourself part that gets you in trouble every time. You can lie to everyone else and most people will probably believe you, because they want to. It helps keep their perspective in line. But lying to yourself? That's a problem.

"Look it's freezing, and I can't go in there without you..." I start and stop when I realize he's already tuned me out. I guess I could try a new tact. "Justin look at me." He does so reluctantly. "Leave him there... come in with me."

I won't break your heart.

He takes a deep breath inwards and elbows the driver's door open, his entire left side slumps against the cold metal. His eyes follow his feet, never once looking in any other direction as he closes the door and sets the alarm. The sound seems to shock him out of his halting steps because he lifts his head and stares straight down the block, taking more certain steps around the car, stopping when he reaches the sidewalk. He doesn't lift his foot to step up, a brief flash of panic splays across his features.

I reach my hand out instinctively and he finds it with his own, without hesitation, without fear.

We walk towards the door, together, hand in hand. Side by side.


	36. Salmon

"It's awfully rude to keep your date waiting. It's doubly rude when you're the one who extended the invitation."

I slide into my seat, taking a few quick pants of breath. Sprinting four blocks from the bus stop in humid 90 degree weather has left me feeling like a mangy dog in heat. I can feel the sweat starting to coat my back and form droplets on my forehead. "Thank you for the etiquette lesson, Miss Manners." I swallow a few breaths in between thoughts and finally take in the sight before me. I can feel my breath begin to stagger again at the revelation that is him. There's nothing particularly special about what he's wearing, it's just a plain black button down shirt that I probably couldn't afford with an entire paycheck but I know I've seen him wear it before. His hair is at its unruliest perfection and he's totally clean shaven. In fact, there's absolutely nothing remarkable about his appearance. He looks like he could be sitting around, doing just about anything. Yet I sit here, stupefied at the sight of him.

He could be anywhere. Doing anything. Doing anyone. But here's here, with me, looking for all the world to see as if this is something we do every night. That simple fact amazes me. It's no special occasion, it's no big deal.

"I would have picked you up," he offers casually, pushing a glass of water towards me.

"I would have done the same, after all I did do the asking, but somehow I can't picture you on a city bus." I gulp the water in three large swallows and I feel my stomach twist in resistance. Or maybe it's just nerves. I'm nervous. I didn't let that sink in until I sat down, but I feel like we're two perfect strangers meeting for the first time. I don't know the first thing to say or do.

"You mean you can't picture us sitting in the back of a bus, with the church rolling away from view, you in a wedding dress, and both of us thinking 'what the hell did we just get ourselves into'?"

I wait for the punchline. He just stifles a laugh. "What?" I ask quizzically.

"Nevermind..." he shakes his head back and forth, amused at my stupidity. "Why are you so late?"

I ignore him. It's best to do that with him sometimes. "Debbie had a goulash crisis at the diner."

"I don't want to know do I?" He guesses correctly.

"You really don't," I affirm with conviction. Who knew one pot of goulash and noodles could cause such a headache? I don't want to think about having to clean that up off the walls tomorrow.

"Justin... Justin?" I look up at him, startled out of my distraction at the sound of my name. "Need I remind you this was your idea. So... entertain me," he smirks.

My mind comes up blank, all I can think about is goulash. And noodles. And Deb's face when she dropped the pot when I told her I was going to be late for a date with Brian. All over my shoes and khakis. The outfit I actually spent an hour trying to pick out. That I put in a dry cleaning bag for fuck's sake and brought with me to work, to make sure that everything was perfect, my clothes, my timing, everything. Instead I'm stuck in the same crummy jeans I've been sweating my, admittedly nice, ass off in all day and a ridiculously sticky shirt that's clinging to me from the sweat I acquired booking down the street to try to salvage my timing. The same crummy jeans that I took my wallet out of and put into my new khaki's. The khaki's I had to take off and promptly forgot to retrieve the wallet from. And I'm on a date. A DATE with Brian fucking Kinney, who, even in his plain black button down shirt, still manages to twist my stomach into knots.

I'm supposed to entertain him!? As if my sudden onset of terrific horror isn't enough entertainment. Why did I want to do this again? "You want to hear a funny story?"

I think... I think I might cry.

"Does it involve wrestling midgets?" He gives me a perfectly blank look.

"Are you on something?"

"No I'm doing the date thing," he exaggerates his extra polite smile, leaning towards me over the table. "Sharing common interests and conversation. I read up on it. Don't you remember that het porno we watched one time with the midgets double teaming the woman in the mechanic's shop on the car lift? Wouldn't it have been so much better if they were wrestling? Don't you think?" He asks with such seriousness it's as if we're discussing famine, disease and war.

"It would have been better if there was no woman, at all. Or midgets for that matter. Actually it would have been better if you didn't subject me to that disgusting thing in the first place." I find myself gazing at him and feeling my nerves double.

"It was the first porno I ever stole from my pop. I wanted to share it with you. Bond with you, man to man." He's so condescendingly pleasant, I want to puke.

"You just wanted to shut me up when I was nagging you about telling me something about your father." I prop open the menu and attempt to ignore him.

"Well that too. So what's your funny story?"

"It's a real knee slapper. You're just... you're really gonna laugh at the absurdity of it all." I smile wide and hope my teeth distract him before I drop the bomb that he's about to pay for my little idea, yet again.

"I thought that was you!" I hear a loud voice come from the general direction of the back of my head, but I don't turn around because I don't recognize it until I see Brian staring at the body behind me. I see his hand first, it's pretty unmistakable. I could braid the hair on his fingers. "Funny we should run into each other don't you think?" He grabs my shoulder like he's tackling a linebacker. Everything about him is gruff.

"Hey... uh..." I blank on his name, I know he introduced himself at the art show, but I was still coming down off of Brian showing up, so I wasn't paying much attention. I just remember the hair, everywhere. On his face, in a ponytail, on his fingers, sticking out of the top of his shirt. I guess he must be about 25, but who can tell under all that hair.

"Russell... Russell Young. It's okay if you don't remember me, you had so many people telling you how much they loved your work that night." He saves me the embarrassing task of asking him his name.

"I remember you. You work at Lucite Graphics right?" He nods his head in the affirmative. I look to Brian, to introduce him. He looks like he's watching some circus freak show attraction. Which I suppose Russell could qualify for, Ape Man, as he lives and breathes.

"Uh... Brian this is..."

"Russell... Russell Young. Of Lucite Graphics. I was paying attention." He leans back in his chair and peruses the menu with affected boredom.

I toss a "don't be a rude, obnoxious shit" stare at him. Better that than a dinner roll.

"I was hoping you would tell me you had some more shows coming up," Russell does a double take at Brian's blunt dismissal as he addresses me.

"Nothing planned right now, but thanks for asking." I'm overly polite to take up for Brian's insolence.

"Let me give you my card, so you can let me know if anything comes up." He fishes around in the pockets of his worn, linen pants before he finds the tattered wallet he's looking for. "I meant what I said, I'm going to keep my eye out on you. I think you can really go places Justin. And I want to make sure Lucite is the first to snatch you up when you become available."

"I'm sure you do," Brian decides to pipe in. "If you don't mind, we're kind of in the middle of something."

"Brian..." I hiss through clenched teeth.

"I don't mean to interrupt anything, I apologize. I just wanted to give your..." Russell falters, searching for an appropriate description and I find myself doing the same thing "...friend... my card. I didn't get a chance to do it at the show."

"Thanks," I steer his attention back to me and take his card. "I'll give you a call if something comes up."

"You can call me any time. I'm always finding interesting art in the strangest of places. You'd probably appreciate it. I'd love to show you some of it."

I get this odd twinge in my gut at the suggestion and one look at Brian's face lets me know I'm not the only one. Only I'm better at denying it.

"I'm hungry. Let's order." Brian signals for the waiter and with one wave, completely ignores Russell's entire existence.

"It was good running into you," I drop the hint, which thankfully Russell seems to pick up on.

He nods his head. "You too. Don't lose that card." He gives Brian one last incredulous stare and me one last smile before he wanders back to his table.

"Jesus Brian! Talk about being rude." I try to continue, but the waiter interrupts my hissyfit. I realize that my nerves have dissipated, replaced by complete annoyance. This wasn't exactly what I had planned when I asked for a date.

"I'll have the smoked salmon with steamed rice and a house salad. And a glass of Merlot."

The waiter turns to me and I realize I haven't even thought about what to eat much less decided, I've been so consumed with Brian. I'm not even sure I can chew at this rate. "I'll just have the chopped steak with onions," I see Brian grimace. "What? You're having fish and you're worried about a what few onions are gonna smell like? Please..." I continue with my order. "And the broiled potato. A house salad sounds good." They both wait, for what seems like an eternity, for my drink order and I can feel the pressure building in my chest as I try to decide whether I want to risk further humiliation. "And a... Coke."

If I don't cry at some point in the evening, it'll be an absolute miracle. What a disaster this is turning out to be.

We both hand him our menus and all I can do is stare in defeat. Brian was right, this was one of my worst ideas yet. I just... I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it. Maybe my expectations are too high.

"Do you think he has to brush the knots out of his pubic hair?" he asks.

"Ugh... you're so gross."

"He'll probably want you to comb it out."

"You are on something aren't you?"

"No, I just know when someone is after a piece of ass. And yours happens to be particularly nice."

True... but still... "Just because someone is civil to you doesn't mean they want to fuck you. You think everything is about sex. It's not, you know. Maybe he's just a nice guy, who could be a really great connection for me."

"Maybe not and maybe he is, but he still wants to fuck you. Trust me." I ignore the instinct that tells me he's right, because I don't want him to be. The thought of fucking Russell is about as appealing to me as the thought of watching two midgets and a woman with flotation devices on her chest going at it on a car lift.

"He's interested in my work, not in me." I want to believe that. I need to believe that. He showed a lot of interest in my portrait series. He's living proof that a graduate of PIFA can actually do something they enjoy with their degree. He's where I want to be. "Aren't you the big advocate of networking?"

"Network all you want, but don't mix business with pleasure. It'll only cause you more problems then you need."

"You should know," I say to no one... to him... quietly. "Besides, I don't care what he wants from me. It doesn't mean he's gonna get it. What are you jealous?" That thought didn't occur to me until right this very second.

He pointedly ignores me. "Are you sure about that? People have a funny way of leading you astray without you even realizing it apparently. That is how it happened, right? You just accidentally woke up in the wrong bed a few times."

I recoil slightly. I'm not used to my indiscretions being thrown in my face without warning like that. I guess I never really thought... well I guess I just never really thought. Period. I play with my fork, stabbing the napkin with its prongs. Tears. Any minute now. "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea."

"Gee, what made you think that?"

"Obviously you're not really ready to forgive me and you don't really want to be here. So why don't we just eat and call it a night. We don't have to talk, you can go home with the waiter. Russell can go home and jack off thinking about me. And I'll go home alone. Everyone will be happy." I say it with so much bitterness it doesn't even sound like me, and I wonder briefly, how the hell I wound up here.

"Break out the violins... on second thought maybe not... Stop with the fucking pity party. I'm exactly where I want to be. Are you? Is this making you happy?"

I want to scream yes, but everything in me resists with a resounding no. Is he ever wrong? Ever? About anything? "No, it's not. I'm a nervous fucking wreck. You think every guy who looks at me cross eyed is some guy I'm about to cheat with, even though the thought of him naked repulses me and you're going out of your way to make this the most obnoxious date in the history of the world. And I got goulash all over my brand new khaki's!"

Listen, I'm not exactly known for being subtle.

"Wouldn't you rather be eating Chinese out of the box, at home, with your shoes off? Instead of all this pretentious shit? See where trying so fucking hard gets you?"

"You're right okay! You're absolutely fucking right. It gets me nowhere. Are *you* happy now? Because that's not the fucking point! Ethan is not the fucking point! Russell is not the fucking point!"

"What is the 'fucking point'?" he mocks me, but at least he's paying attention.

"The *FUCKING POINT*," I emphasize, "is that I want you to try, and that's all I've ever FUCKING wanted from you! I don't care if we fail miserably at it, I just want us to try. And you act like it's totally irrational for me to want that. And if you did FUCKING try, do you honestly believe I'd want *anyone* else? It's you, okay? That's it, that's all I want, that's all I've ever wanted. Who the fuck knows what you want..." And so it goes.

I suck in a breath and give the patrons of the table next to us a death stare. Can't people mind their own business? I don't dare look him in the eyes because I don't want to know what's there. If I'm going to be kicked in the gut, I don't want to watch. I'd rather live in ignorant bliss and just feel one swift kick.

"You know what I want?" I sneak a sideways glance at his eyes, filled with magnetic fire and wait to hear his answer. He's brimming with impatience at his inability to articulate whatever feelings I've roused in him. "I want..." He can't say it. Brian Kinney, at a loss for words. I never thought I'd live to see the day. "I want Chinese food! Out of the box! In my fucking socks."

"Why didn't you just say so?" I tease him. "There's a great place a couple of blocks from my apartment."

"*You* wanted a date!"

"A date is whatever you make of it. Or didn't you read up on that part? They make a good salmon stir fry, there's enough for two. Their portions are huge, you won't have to eat the whole thing." I tempt him with the offer. "Let's get out of here."

"We already ordered."

"So we'll cancel the order. Tell them something came up."

We both look down. Well... that part's true.

"I'm not gonna last that long."

"Where's the Jeep?"

"Down the block."

"So, we'll walk fast."

That seems to satisfy him. He stands with no compunction, fully displayed for all the world to see. And see they do. Of course, they shouldn't be looking to begin with, nasty little perverts. I'm slightly more discrete when I stand up from the table, walking with my hands crossed in front of me. I watch him explain to the waiter and slip him a twenty.

He practically shoves me out the door, not that I put up much resistance. We march hurriedly down the block.

"Distract me, tell me that funny story." We're practically running.

"It involves the goulash," I threaten.

He gives me a baffled once over and I just shrug my shoulders. "Fuck it. Let's just get the car."

What can I say? If a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, sometimes a pot of goulash falling out of the hand is worth less than salmon stir fry for two out of the box.


	37. Bone

I am bone tired and my body is too long for this bed. I don't like the feeling of my feet dangling off the end of the frame. It makes my calves ache from the strain of trying to keep them straight. I'm too old for this shit. Pretending like this is some fun, cozy adventure. There's nothing fun about back strain and nothing cozy about being mashed together like two sardines in a tin can in a bed designed for one body, and that body is certainly not mine. I didn't like it when *I* was in college, why would I enjoy it now? I just want to be in my own bed, with my own pillow, doing my own thing.

If I could remember what that thing is supposed to be.

I can feel restless movements on my left side but I refuse to open my eyes. I know the game he's playing, he's mastered his technique. First he flops around like a fish sprung from water, sighing the deep sighs of expectant death, then he stabs the pillow with his fists as if to beat it into a comfortable position, or to blame it for being uncomfortable to start with. He'll lay still for a minute or two before he starts the cycle again, until finally he sits up in defeat, with his back facing me, and he'll wait until I ask what's the problem. I'll get innocent cow eyes and a miserable "nothing, go back to sleep". Usually at that point, that's what I would do, turn a full 180 degrees on my side and just wait for him to settle himself down. I guess that one night that I didn't turn around, but instead waited and stared at his back just to see what he would do, irrevocably changed the game. He turned around and looked right through me, as if he was hallucinating the sight. He didn't say anything, I didn't say anything. He just laid back down and settled his head right next to my shoulder, barely even grazing my skin. I didn't make any kind of movement. I don't think my bones could have moved at that moment, even if I tried to will them to through telekinesis. I laid still and felt his head tentatively slip towards my collarbone and his ankle trap my foot to the bed. He shifted until he was practically laying on his stomach and my entire arm was caught under him. He was asleep within two minutes. He can fall asleep standing up. If he's not sleeping, there's a reason for it.

I don't think I turned my back or closed my eyes on him again after that. In bed, at least.

I guess that's the thing with Justin. He's honest to a fault even when he's lying. He's not a game player even when he's playing games. He doesn't look at the world... doesn't look at me... and try to figure out how to deceive it, how best to take advantage. That's what informs lying and game playing, the intent, not the actual lie or the game. His intent doesn't waver. He wants what he wants and he makes no bones about it. He doesn't question it, he doesn't beat himself up for it, he just gets it by whatever means necessary. He never really intends to lie or play games, or hurt anyone. If you happen to be in his way, you just happen to be in the way, no harm intended, you either go along with him or you get out of the way.

And people wonder about the two of us? Sometimes, I have no idea why it's not plainly obvious to anyone with two eyes.

If jealousy was something I was allowed to feel, I'd be disgustingly jealous of him. To be young and untouched by the reality of your own actions. To be totally oblivious, unapologetic and innocent about who you are. That's just him, it's just who he is, take it or leave it. At least he has a him, a thing, his own thing, that thing that he answers to, in that him that actually exists. Not a him he intends to deceive anyone with, just in case they get close to the real him.

He's more me than I am.

Because that's the other thing that informs the lying and game playing, the consequences. They aren't always pretty.

But I'm not playing this game he doesn't know he's playing. Not tonight. He's already sucked the marrow out of me with this ridiculous "date" and sleepover. On these fucking sheets! I have an urge to scream or pound my head on a wall.

I feel him sit up and I refuse to open my eyes. He makes big, unfamiliar movements and I spy on him through webbed eyelashes. It's a trick I learned when I would pretend to be asleep if Jack came to check on me in bed. I'd watch and wait until he was gone to open my eyes and he never once noticed I wasn't asleep. He swings his legs off the bed and gets up. He just gets up and leaves the bed! What the fuck is this?

"What are you doing?" Shutup! Shit!

"I'm still hungry. You can go back to not sleeping." He grabs the first open carton of food he can find and sticks the first fork he sees right in. He doesn't care what it is, whose fork it was, he just shovels it right in.

"I'm a light sleeper, you woke me up."

"Okay, whatever you say," he mumbles around his mouthful of food. "Then go back to that."

"I am and I was!" I argue as if we're deciding the fate of the universe as we know it. He shrugs his shoulders and sticks another forkful of cold noodles in his mouth. "This bed is too small. I can feel you every time you inhale. Did you think I wouldn't notice you get out of the bed? That it wouldn't wake me up?"

"Just go home," he sighs. "I'm too tired to argue with you."

"You'd be asleep if you were too tired to argue with me." He really shouldn't leave himself that wide open.

"I'm giving you your opportunity to get out of this, the one you've been searching for all night so don't blow it. Or I really might barricade you in the bed and make you stay," he offers with a bit of numb glee.

"Are you throwing me out?" I think he might actually be doing that and for the briefest of seconds this irritates me. I'll decide when I leave for myself.

"Is this making you happy?" He tosses my question back at me, right between my eyes. "I'm not really used to sleeping next to someone in that bed and you're making me uncomfortable, laying there like you're waiting for rigor mortis to set in. I don't like being uncomfortable in my own bed. And you, you're just miserable... no real explanation necessary there. So go, no guilt, you have my blessing. I won't hold it against you."

"Well thank you Oh Wise One. I must have missed your canonization to sainthood. Now fuck off and stop chewing so loudly, so I can sleep." I don't merely roll over, I slap my body onto the mattress and take over his side of the bed, until I'm laying diagonally with bent knees, finally fitting on the bed. I grab an armful of sheets and tuck them under my ribs for good measure. To let him know I'm serious about not going anywhere. I'm not about to be thrown out.

He tosses his fork into the sink and it clangs loudly, first against the faucet and then the basin. "Will you just get out? Why would you want to stay here and make yourself miserable? I get it, I got it four hours ago. Point taken." The louder he talks, the closer his voice gets to my back, the more I feel my bones tense and seize the mattress. "You got what you came for. Go home!"

I hear this cracking sound in my brain. It's my patience, and it's just snapped. I turn in a fit, to a puddle of Justin on the floor and the actual sound I heard begins to register. It's him on the floor, on his ass, his foot caught between the air conditioner that threatens to topple over and the floor. I can see the strain on his face as his ankle twists at an awkward angle trying to prevent it from happening.

"FUCK! Get this fucking thing off me!" He yells and I'm sure there are going to be curious neighbors at his door within minutes. Then I remember he lives in a tenement and people probably get shot here everyday and no one lifts an eyebrow. My feet hit the floor and I lean over to lift the unit off of him before I even realize that I'm laughing. And he's... well... he's not. He's not even smiling a tiny bit. He's scowling.

It's funny. His naked ass spread eagle on the floor after tripping over the air conditioner and taking it down with him. That's comedy!

"I hate that fucking machine," he growls. "Do you have any idea how many times I've stubbed my toe on it, or almost knocked it over? You can take it with you when you get the fuck out of my house!"

"Testy, testy... Need a hand?" I shove my arm at him as obnoxiously as possible.

"I don't need your help." He gathers himself up on the good foot and winces when he steps down with the other. "Shit, I hope I didn't break anything."

"The floor looks okay to me, the weight of your ass didn't crack it!" I expect him to slap me in the head when he leans forward, instead he grabs my shoulder and steadies his balance. This concerns me. "Hey you are okay, aren't you?"

"I'm fine. I don't think I broke any bones. It's just that stabbing kind of pain. I can move it around." He demonstrates by wiggling all of his toes and swinging his foot back and forth very gingerly. "It'll probably just be sore in the morning."

"Well then you need me to stay and make sure you can walk around and there's really nothing broken. How would you get to the phone to call me to ask for help?" I smirk with a casualness I don't necessarily feel.

"Who says I would call you?" He shoves off of me and limps to the couch. "It's your fault I got hurt to begin with. You'd only make it worse."

"It's my fault you don't know how to look where you're going?"

"You're the one who forced that stupid machine on me. To make you comfortable if you'll recall."

"But you're certainly taking advantage of it. You haven't exactly thrown it out, have you?" Now I'm sleepless, irritated and concerned and he's just brazen and it's irritating me more that he could be that blase about it all.

"I'm trying to, but you won't leave."

"We're not talking about me." He looks right at me, looks me up and down from head to toe and looks away. Oh but we are, we always are. The little fuckhead actually rolls his eyes. "Who else would you call? And what do you mean I got what I came for?" I'm not exactly sure why, but I really, really want to know.

"What, you thought we'd be playing Uno after dinner? No expectations right, dating is a waste of time, doing anything to remotely acknowledge you might be within a five thousand mile radius of a sort of sometimes relationship is a waste of time. So I say we just fuck. That way we both know what we're getting. You sleeping over when we're done just complicates things that don't need to be complicated."

He's way more me than I will ever be.

My voice coming out of him is like the screeching sound of metal and glass crunching together and when I look at him, all I see is the leftover remains of the wreckage. "You know what? Enough with the wounded animal routine! You're not some delicate fucking bird whose wing was broken and needs to be fixed and nurtured before it can fly again. So it got all fucked up, so what? All you have to do is take your two perfectly healthy legs, you don't crawl, you don't keep one foot in and one foot out, you don't stumble around, you just walk away and save us all the aggravation."

"You don't say," he mock marvels at my revelation. "Only I can't walk at the moment and even when I can, I just bang into things anyway. You can walk and you never falter, so there's the door. Use it. No locks remember?"

I look around and I realize I hate this apartment. I hate everything about this place. I hate the bone white walls. I hate the sheets. I hate the thin walls. I hate the size. I hate the garish neon colors that comes in through the window. I hate the repugnant smell that comes from god only knows where. I hate that air conditioner with white hot intensity at the moment. I hate that every time I come here, I leave more aggravated than I was before I came, but I never leave unsatisfied. Mostly I fucking hate that I feel like I have absolutely no place here, even though it's technically mine, that I don't fit any of the furniture and when I do it's only because he's not on it which is just backwards and wrong. I don't fit any of the surroundings, and yet I can't lift one fucking foot to leave, to go back to my own bed, my own life. I just keep trying to squeeze into his and he can't even be bothered to meet me halfway. Thankfully.

"Who would you call?"

He goes to respond with some patented Brian Kinney answer but comes up empty handed. Because he is who he is and his scary imitation of me isn't a comfortable fit for him. "I don't know and I don't want to find out."

"What *do* you want?"

There I fucking said it. I asked the million dollar question. He finally dragged it out of me. I sit back down on the bed that I seem to dwarf with my size because I feel like I've been raked over dirt, gravel, chunks of metal and glass for the five thousand miles it took to get here. All that's left of me is a skeleton with chips of bone scattered all over the road.

"You. That never changed. Unless you're willing to try and give me that then I don't see the point in going around in circles."

That's just so simple, three letters. One small little word. There's really not much to it, not much at all. Other than everything. Other than that, no not much at all.

"Can I at least finish giving you this idiotic 'sleepover' first and then we can work the rest out as we go along?"

Work me out, whatever the hell I am. Over time, not right now, not all at once, somewhere down the road. I might not be much, but it's all I've got.

It's an offer that tides him over for the moment, because he concedes by just laying back on the couch, resting his foot on the arm, letting my negligible answer just be enough. He's good for that sometimes. "You can have the bed. I know you need more room than I do. Just throw me my pillow and a sheet."

I bundle up his request and think about tossing it at him, but I don't want any sudden reaction that could potentially cause him to bang his foot and injure it any more than it may already be. Instead I just walk it over to him and he does that same thing he always does to me. He looks at me and he sees right past me and he doesn't run screaming in the other direction, he just keeps barreling forward. I wait until he stuffs the pillow under his head, the sheet over his body and closes his eyes before I turn and walk back to the bed, switching off the lamp on the end table as I go.

I lay in the bed, spread all over it and stare at the ceiling imagining that I can actually see the fissures in the dark that threaten to crack wide open and rain plaster all over me and bury me alive while I sleep. I don't know if any actually exist, but it's not a great leap to presume they do.

Who would I call if I needed help? If the sky cracked open and fell on my head? Who do I have?

Who does he have if he doesn't have me? He has himself, which is more than I can say.

I guess the best game players are the ones that can run a game on you, without you ever realizing it until it's too late and you've lost. I've been totally beaten at my own game by someone who never intends to play, much less win, but always does anyway. But I don't feel like I've lost, everything just feels empty and hollow.

I slip my arm under the pillow, but the pressure from my head just doesn't match up. There's nothing more to lose at this point.

I grab my pillow and move gracefully in the dark. Even without sight, I don't walk into anything. I lean over the couch and that's enough for him to open his eyes. I can't see them, but I know they're open.

"What's up?"

"The couch is longer, I can stretch my legs out."

"You want me to take the bed instead?"

"No, just move over." I hear a grunt of a question about how we intend to fit on this couch together and I can't answer it. Instead I just nudge his back with my ass as I sit down and throw my pillow near his head. "Just do it."

He pushes himself as far as he can into the back of the couch and I slide behind him, fit what I can, where I can under his sheet. It's a precarious position and if either of us moves, one of us, namely me, is going to end up on the floor. Either way I know we're both going to wake up feeling like all of our bones are about to split in half. I slip my arm under his ribcage, my head above his, and stretch my feet to the arm of the couch. He leans his sore foot on my ankle and reaches around for my other arm. He'll hold me in place all night by his own will if he has to.

That's when I know. I'm willing to give it a try. He wants me. That's what I'll give him. Everything of nothing.


	38. Tan

I guess I should probably open my eyes now. But every second I don't open them increases my chances of not dying of embarrassment before the sun has barely lifted itself out of its slumber. Because that just shouldn't even be possible. It shouldn't count if you make a fool of yourself while you're still half unconscious. You should just get a free pass, and should definitely not wind up falling over from mortified shock at doing something so outrageously stupid by the mere act of opening your eyes and then your mouth.

The longer I keep my eyes closed, the less chance I have of seeing him say no. The less I see him say no, the more I can convince myself that his mouth was saying no, but his head was nodding yes and I just couldn't see it, because my eyes were closed. It's amazing the ways you can convince yourself of things that don't actually exist by choosing to never actually see them, like, on purpose.

On the other hand, if I don't open my eyes, he'll probably make a mad dash to find his pants, maybe not even that much, and be out the door like a roach when someone switches the light on, before I have a chance to even make a total ass out of myself. Maybe this is a conversation better left for the phone where I can't see his face? But then he won't get to see my begging frown and the chances of him saying yes will decrease dramatically.

Not that I would ever do something like that. I'm just saying... the possibility exists that my face might, by accident, start to look really desperate and hurt, and oh yeah, close to tears. Not on purpose, of course, just you know, naturally.

Because I'm sure that's what I'm going to feel when I hear "no". It's going to be a big, fat, giant, being thrown off a rooftop and branding me in the head, "NOOOOO", followed by howls of laughter. If I'm lucky it'll end there, but I don't rely on luck when it comes to him. This is when the dying from humiliated horror part will come in. I'll be the cockroach wanting to make a mad dash out the door trying to escape his foot stomping Prada shoe deathtrap at that point. Not that he's a cockroach, per se, more like a blood sucking varmint. A mosquito maybe, always leaving an unbearable itch after he feasts on my blood.

Fuck it... The worst he can say is no, right?

Right.

It won't change anything.

Right. Absolutely.

So I'll just open my eyes. No harm done.

As long as you don't count the dizzy spell I get from my first glimpse of him. I'm so glad I'm already lying down. It's just... I don't know, something happens to him in the middle of the night. Whatever ugly, unpleasant way he was before he goes to bed just seems to gets washed away by the first crack of light. He always looks younger, his bedhead all over the place, a crease on his arm from the impression of the mattress, or in this case, the couch, or maybe me. I never considered that for some reason. Maybe I'm just imprinted all over him... His back slouches and his eyes adjust slowly to the new light of day. He doesn't look like he has all the answers, he looks as bendable and soft and mushy as the rest of humanity. I'd say vulnerable, but I have this nagging fear that he can read my mind and if I thought that out loud, even in the safe confines of my own brain, he'd never let me hear the end of it.

He looks... imperfect. I love that about him.

Why, he even looks like he could use, oh I don't know, a tan? Maybe if I suggest he has flaws he'll become so obsessed with trying to perfect them that he'll accidentally give in and say "yes, a million times yes Justin, lead me to the oasis so I can perfect my perfectness".

Or maybe he'll just slap my ass and find a tanning bed.

I stir about a little, moving my legs behind him, move my other bits as well, because they're what's closest to his ass, that sits in the middle of the couch, as he leans his elbows on his knees. I can almost see him square his shoulders, shake the sleep off his face and put on his other face. The one that gets a break when sleep takes over its shift. I know he'll say no, but I'd rather ask and die of embarrassment, than never ask at all.

"What time is it?" It's the only neutral question I can think of.

"Too early, go back to sleep. It's your day off."

I pause for a moment, genuinely surprised that he actually remembers that. "It's yours too. Remember?" Well Sundays generally are, or were, but sometimes he goes in for a couple of hours, which turns into half the day. He works too hard. There's another point in my favor.

"I have a couple of things I need to take care of for tomorrow."

I'm not really interested, but I ask anyway, because it's the right thing to do. "Like what?" I mean, I'm interested in his life, how his job is affecting him, but I'm just not interested in the actual ins and outs of advertising. It's not something I find fascinating. The visual stuff and the actual ads are cool, actually the whole conceptualizing process is pretty cool. He really gets into that. It's the charts and market surveys and budget planning and staff meetings that make my eyes glaze over into a bored stupor. I would have lasted 3.6 seconds at Dartmouth.

"Nothing you'd be interested in." See? It's scary the way he does that.

"Maybe I would be if you explained." That's a total lie, he knows it, I know it. Even the fucking cockroaches know it.

"Well what do you want to know about first? Budget forecasting and collections for the third and fourth quarters or the staffing issues on the Lansing account? Or maybe the interview process for a new focus group coordinator?" he asks with as much sincerity as I have actual interest.

Sherk.Sherk.Sherk.Blip.Blip.Blip.Blah.Blah.Blah. That's pretty much all I hear. It's not even 8 a.m., how am I supposed to be awake enough to pay attention?

"Why do you have to do all the scuff work? What does Vance have to do?"

"He has to make sure I know just how junior my partnership is at every turn." Sounds vaguely familiar.

"It's not what you expected is it?" He actually turns to regard me with some interest and I look around as if I'm not the one who asked. Which I'm not sure I am, it just sort of came out. "The partnership I mean. You actually have to work harder at things that you don't actually want to do, but they're kind of just part of the package. Instead of just getting to create the ads you want."

"It has its tradeoffs," is all he'll allow. Heaven forbid he actually admits it doesn't all come naturally to him, but overall it works, on whatever strange level, it just takes a little elbow grease. I mean, really, heaven forbid. "Money's good. Perks are good. I'm doing what I want to do. Getting out of it, what I put into it."

"Just takes a little effort, huh?" Of course, he says nothing. He just sits back against the couch, leaning his head on the edge, his back hovering over my sheet covered dick. This doesn't seem at all uncomfortable to either of us, even though I'm trapped and he's about to have something poking his back if he keeps sitting there naked as the day he was born. In fact, I quite like this position. I pick myself up slowly and carefully, so that I'm in a half sitting position, but I'm not disturbing his lazy rest. I just lean my face against the couch and stare at his profile. Dizzy doesn't cover it. I could float on nothing more than the picture in front of me for weeks on end. "Money's always good. Perks are even better. As long as you're satisfied. Just don't forget to enjoy the rest of your life once in a while."

And I move in for the kill.

"Did you forget who you were talking to?" he snickers.

"Not at all." He lifts a faint eye and stares at me from the corner of it. "You work too much and you play too hard. You need to just relax every once in a while. Don't try so hard to always be 'on'. Just, you know, be still and enjoy yourself..." I drop my voice to barely above a whisper. I won't even think it, no won't think "with me" at all. Not for a second. He's too close to me and I know he'll hear it. The closer he is, the more attuned his brainwaves seem to get.

Withmewithmewithmewithmewithmewithme, my brain just starts to churn out in a never ending chorus, inexplicably. Shut the fuck up!

I have a point, I know I do, because he looks away from me and stares straight ahead. He can't look at me and try to deny me at the same time. I want to reach my hand out and stroke something. No, not that. I want to stroke his unkempt hair, smooth it down, calm the strands. But if I lay a finger on that head, I'm pretty certain he won't give it back. I want to calm him down, because I know everything in him is running at full speed and readying his arsenal of "no's", without moving an inch. I'm sure he's already shut down entirely and now I really have nothing left at stake. It's just a perfunctory question at this point. I will be dying of embarrassment before I even take my first piss of the day. What the hell have I got to lose? I reach over and watch my fingers work their way into the strands of his hair at the back of his neck. I'm not sure when I discovered it, but that makes him a little weak.

"Do you want to go away with me?" At worst he'll bolt, at best he'll just ignore me entirely. But at least I asked. "I know we haven't exactly had the best track record with vacations, or anything, but it can't get any worse, right?" I keep talking, just to fill up the room with something more than the sound of his breathing. "You could use a tan you know. Some color would do you good. All those hours in the office and then wandering around Babylon are making you one pale boy." I let out a nervous laugh, like I have room to talk. I keep talking, because if I stop, the oxygen might actually hit my brain and I'll suddenly realize how incredibly foolish I sound. Right now, I can just be a moron without any fear of recourse, because I'm too dizzy to pay it any attention.

He laughs quietly and my fingers freeze. "If I need a tan, then what the fuck would you call what you need? A staining? Besides, how much sun would we wind up actually getting?"

I stare quizzically, and laugh along with him. I'm pretty sure that wasn't one of the reactions I conjured up. "Okay forget the tan, just think of the water and sand and sun, better yet think of relaxing without a care in the world. Doesn't that sound nice?" My fingers nearly dig through his scalp.

"A vacation might be nice. I've got some time owed to me since I missed the last one," he remarks with as much regret as he can muster. Which isn't very much, but it's good enough.

It takes all my self-restraint to not start bouncing up and down. Play this calm, play this cool, because this is going way better than I could have imagined.

"Maybe we can go away for the 4th of July," I suggest, helpfully.

"Seems like you already have this entire trip planned and I'm just footing the bill."

I choose to ignore that and accidentally pinch the skin behind his ear instead. "It won't cost you a thing, other than train fare." His face is skeptical. I don't want to be hopeful, I won't be hopeful, I. Will. Not. My stomach begins a slow climb towards the back of my throat. "I have to go away for a few days. I was thinking you could go with me." If I don't die of embarrassment, I'll die from chewing on my own intestines, at this rate.

"Where are you going?"

If I puked on him, would he clean me up, or throw me off him? I think I'm about to find out. "I have to go Cape Cod for a few days. It's really nice there, I've been there a bunch of times, especially for the 4th of July."

If I look up I know I'll see an image of him precariously dangling the "NO" that he's about to let fall on my head. I look anywhere, but at him.

"Do I even want to know what's in Cape Cod?"

"My grandmother. I used to go every year, before..." Fill in the blanks, before someone used my head for batting practice, before my entire family fell apart, before I was just too old and mature and worldly to do such a thing... before you. "She basically guilt tripped me into coming with the 'I'm not getting any younger and all I have are my children and grandchildren' routine."

I've never seen Brian Kinney dumbfounded. I'm pretty sure this is as close as I'm going to get to ever seeing it again.

"You're actually serious?" He at least tries not to spit out the laughter right in my face as he leans off the back of the couch. "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf visiting granny and sitting down for some tea with her quilting circle. Even Emmett is not that fucking nelly Justin and that's saying a lot!"

"She's not like that! That's not what we'd be doing," I sputter and feel the embarrassment start to choke the life out of me. "It's my mother's mother. She's actually pretty cool. Well... cool in that I've lived so long, seen so much, I won't waste my time caring what the fuck you're doing as long as you're not embarrassing me, kind of way. She knows about you. How could she not? She said I could bring whoever I wanted, just as long as I come." I add, as if that's going to bolster my case. "Listen she's not going to judge you because of where you put your dick, just how much of one you are."

"I don't give a fuck what she thinks about me, or my dick or what holes in your body I'm sticking it in. I'm not going to play housebroken domesticated puppy with you and Grandma for a week! That's not my idea of relaxing!"

The veins in his neck actually pop back and forth the longer he balks. I'm not dead yet, and I guess I won't even have the relief of that to save me. But hey, at least I had the nerve to ask, which is more than I can say for him. He doesn't even have the nerve to try.

I just shrug my shoulders and make a mental note to inform Daphne that her vacation plans with me are back on. "Fine, I'll just go alone and be miserable. You can stay here and work yourself into a heart attack."

Sometimes it feels like just tossing pebbles at a wall of indestructible waves. But surely I have to pierce him at least a little bit, for the sake of my own dignity.

"Oh, no. I'm going on vacation. Now that you've put it in my mind. You can go rub Ben Gay on Grandma all day. I intend to rub something else all day."

"Where are you going?" I feel my stomach start to slide back down the track it came up, right to my toes and my face start to follow suit. And I'm not even trying. I'm seriously not trying. "I could put my trip off for a few days." Oh God, I'm half a step away from begging. Must not beg.

"And ruin all that fun? No, go, have a gay old time. And I do mean gay," he smirks. "I'm thinking some place sunny, with a beach and a pool. Maybe Puerto Vallarta. There's some resort down there that Michael has been trying to get me to go to for years. Stacked wall to wall with men. Ben's away at that conference and it's probably the first year that Michael can actually afford to go. Yes I think I could definitely learn to enjoy myself more!" I can see the wheels spinning in his head. He's already halfway across the country. "Celebrate our independence..."

I feel a tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach, like someone might have just kicked me there.

"You're gonna go with Michael?" I pull my body into a fully sitting position, pull my legs from behind him and into my chest. "On vacation?" I ask, with more incredulity than I expected.

Withoutmewithoutmewithoutmewithoutmewithoutme, my brain just starts to churn out in a never ending chorus, inexplicably. Shut the fuck up!

He doesn't seem to pick up on it, he's too consumed with dreaming about sun and sand, and men, many many men, that are not me and that I don't care about. It's one man. The one he's thinking about harassing out of bed at this godawful hour and telling to get his ass in gear, they're going away in a couple of days. The one who will gladly do as told. The one who's actually going with him.

Maybe if I opened my eyes more often, I would have seen it before?

Maybe I can't see past the disappointment at the moment. Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I just want to sulk, and pout, and be hurt. Maybe I should have asked him on the phone, after all.

Quite possibly, I'm making a bigger deal out of this than need be. It's just a vacation. It's not like he's in love with him. I mean I'm taking my best friend with me, and that's no big deal, I'm not in love with her either. No, that's not the problem.

It's that sometimes I think he might, sort of, possibly be a little in love with me.

"This is the best idea you've had in ages," he remarks.

And then I think, does it even matter? After all, what do I have to show for it?

Nothing but stray fingers, a sore foot, long face, pale skin and a broken heart


	39. Crystal Blue Persuasion

“Jesus Emmett, are you trying to blind me?” He bounces his head back barely missing the door that he slides closed behind him with one hand while using the other hand to instinctively cover his face to prevent any further harm.

“I’m sorry sweetie, I thought this thing was off.” I fiddle helplessly with the buttons on the camera trying to figure out how to switch the mode from camera to video camera on something the size of a bar of soap. What evil entity decided we needed this kind of bizarre technology? What’s wrong with taking a Polaroid? Instead of shutting it off, I wind up somehow pointing it in the direction of my face and I’m greeted with the same flash of light I just shot right at Justin’s crystal blue, unprepared eyes. Well I guess I’ve mastered the picture button. All I can see in front of me now are two flashing spots of neon green that take the vague shape of some paranormal goblin, and I wonder briefly if this is what they really meant by “See The Light”.

“Okay enough playing with the Fisher Price toys for you.” Brian singsongs. His hands appear out of nowhere and retrieve his very expensive little gadget, slipping it right out of my fingers like a very crafty pickpocket. I actually feel this more than I see this because I’m quite sure I’ve permanently damaged my retinas. Okay maybe not crafty because he’s so blatant, and maybe not a pickpocket because he’s taking it out of plain sight and it’s technically his so he’s not really stealing, but still the essence of the point remains the same. He just has this way of slithering about that makes all of his movements feel slightly obscene, and a little bit illegal, when he touches you. Or I could just be imagining that.

Whatever, I’m just glad to have that contraption out of my hands. Goodness only knows what I would have caught on video in this apartment in thirty seconds flat. Especially with Justin walking in the door. It doesn’t really much matter anymore that the rest of us are here, now does it? There’s just this thing... that just happens when you get the two of them together in the same room. The air changes. Or maybe it’s just all of us holding our breath at once waiting to be thrown out so they can maul each other like two wild tigers on some episode of “When Animals Attack”.

I rub my eyes, which doesn’t really help, but through my fingers I can see Justin make a bee line for a stool at the counter as Brian casually swings towards him. If any of the rest of us did that we would look like we were trying way too hard to ever really be casual. He just looks unaffected. Maybe he really is. Maybe not... Granted my contribution to this impromptu welcome home soiree is absolutely fabulous as we’ve all come to expect, but it’s vegetables and dip. No one is going to seriously knock themselves over to get to it. We’re not bobbing for apples - or anything else that involves bobbing - here. Brian turns heel after that rebuff and walks back to the computer where Teddy and Michael are marveling over the clarity of the pictures Michael took with that digital thingamabob.

“Emmett you have to see this water, it’s crystal blue,” Michael encourages me.

“And the guy in the thong speedo standing in front of it isn’t so bad either,” Ted cracks. His tongue is practically lapping the keyboard.

“I’ll look later,” I reply.

I hate looking at other people’s vacation pictures. Even the ones with half naked men, something which I would normally be first in line to see. But not when they’re pictures of stuff that other people were actually there to witness without me. It just loses something in the translation when they start trying to describe how it actually looked in person. It starts looking like something I should be a little envious about. Envy is an ugly, wasted emotion and one I try not to dabble in too often. Right behind greed, lust and various other sins. Most pictures aren’t of naked men anyway, but of buildings and landscape and sand and water and moments from a life that’s not your own, which is even harder to appreciate without having been there for yourself.

Besides, there’s something that appears to be a little more immediate that needs my attention. And that’s one very aggravated boy with one very large cold front following him. It’s 90 degrees outside, something tells me it doesn’t have much to do with the weather out there.

My vision starts returning to normal as I approach Justin’s back at the counter. I can see him munching miserably on a carrot and for the first time I realize his eyes are more bloodshot than anything, like he hasn’t slept in days. Or like he’s been crying. Or maybe both. I pull out the stool next to him and I feel like I’m entering a force field because now I’m right next to Justin’s body, which puts me directly in Brian’s line of sight. The one they’re both trying desperately to pay no attention to.

“How was the Cape? You don’t look like you got out much.” In fact, he looks paler than he did when he left! I didn’t think that was humanly possible, but it’s true.

“It was kind of rainy and muggy, so I spent a lot of time indoors,” he shrugs.

“I take it you don’t have any pictures to add to the festivities then?” He shakes his head no and takes another carrot. “Good, because if I have to look at one more picture of a tree or grain of sand, I’m going to take someone and toss them into a very large body of water with very large waves and that disgusting seaweed, and tie rocks to their ankles,” I threaten.

“Not very interested in the adventures of Brian and Mikey are we?” he understates.

“About as interested as you are.”

“Touché.”

“Besides, I’ve already pulled duty for an hour, it’s your turn. I can’t play hostess and interested party all at the same time. It wears me out.” I reach for a bottle of water with all the exasperation I can muster.

“Stick with the veggies,” he recommends. “You’re much more suited to that.”

“Justin come here. Look at this footbridge. It has really interesting architecture,” Brian beckons.

“He only took like 600 pictures of it from every angle,” Michael interjects, obviously not impressed. I’m sort of surprised he even noticed Justin walked in the door.

“You mean you actually managed to leave the resort?” Justin sneers, but makes no move to actually get up and view the pictures.

“Yeah, I figured I’d get some *culture* along with my tan.” Brian forces a blinding smile. This must bear some significance because Justin makes mincemeat of the carrot in his mouth. In fact, he might even be chewing through his tongue at the rate his jaw is moving. I skooch away just a tad. I know a thing or two about rabid, drooling dogs. I’d like to leave with all limbs in one piece. “Are you going to come look at the picture or not?”

I see Justin teeter back and forth between satisfying himself and satisfying Brian, and I see Brian lose in short order because Justin works his way through the celery instead. I lean back because I can feel the tension pulsing its way across the room from both sides, and I don’t want to be anywhere near that.

“I think he took the pictures to show them to you.” I whisper to his back through gritted teeth and a smile, trying to distract Brian from recognizing that I’m spilling his dirty little secrets. Small consolation to Justin, but it’s something.

“Great. Maybe he brought me back a t-shirt too. ‘My Boyfriend Went To Puerto Vallarta With His Best Friend And Left Me All Alone And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.’ Oh wait, I’m not his boyfriend, scratch that. I don’t even merit that much.”

Like I said, envy is an ugly emotion, because it makes for one bitter pill to swallow. Bitterness is never attractive, not even on Justin. I don’t necessarily blame him though. I wouldn’t want to look at my boyfriend’s life in snapshots with another man who wasn’t me either. That’s the whole point of a picture, is to capture a moment and make it a memory. If you’re not in it, you’re not part of the memory. That has to hurt. It just has to.

“You’re awfully grumpy for someone who just came back from a week’s vacation,” I remind him. “Shouldn’t you be well rested and in a forgiving mood?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. He went on vacation. I went on vacation. What’s the damage?” He tries to play it off. I roll my eyes and take my own life in my hands by leaning forward on the counter and blocking Brian’s eagle eyed view. I can almost hear a cackle of sound in my ear, like I disrupted his reception.

Look, *I* knew it was a bad idea from the start. I told Michael it was a bad idea, but he didn’t comprehend this because Ben was so understanding of the situation, so why shouldn’t Justin be? What’s a little vacation between friends? Yes I’m sure that’s exactly what Ben was thinking, a thousand miles away in a hotel room at a teacher’s conference. He wasn’t exactly in a position to say no, now was he? I don’t know for certain if Justin asked Brian to go with him. Half of me says yes, the other half says no, but I know Justin has balls and he would do something as clearly insane as that. Whatever the situation, two boys on the verge of that humina humina moment in a relationship going their separate ways with their separate best friends on separate vacations is just not a good thing, no matter how you look at it. You don’t want to be in the middle of that. Unless your name is Michael. In which case, you not only want to be in the middle of it, you want to lead the way right out of town. You *never* interrupt a humina humina moment. That’s just part of the rule book.

“I know your humina humina moment was ruined, but...”

“My what?” Justin stops chewing long enough to stare at me slackjawed with confusion.

“Your humina humina moment. Hello... like you don’t know what that is.” I wait a beat, expecting some recognition and get nothing. “You know that moment, that one ‘OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HUMINAHUMINAHUMINA I’MINLOVE’ vibrating moment that just runs right through you when it really hits you for the first time.” I demonstrate by pretending that I’m in the electric chair and they’re shocking my system. Nothing. He gives me absolutely nothing but a blank stare in return.

“Huh?” Do I have to explain everything?

“That one time when everything is just so perfect for a few seconds that you actually know what it physically *feels* like to be in love with someone. Like a total body vibration.” This seems to sink in with him, slowly. I might not have much practical experience with the concept, but it only takes one time and you know it for life. “And you really know you are, because you know they love you back.”

He considers this warily and I know I’ve gotten to him, but somehow admitting it out loud will only make the disruption feel ten times worse. “I think you’re mistaking the bass coming from the floorboards in the backroom at Babylon for love.”

Right. I have no idea what I’m talking about. I never have any idea what I’m talking about. Justin should consult with Michael about how little I know what I’m talking about, then they could just bond over how little I know and clear up all the other petty little problems they have, and I can go back to not knowing anything. “So you’ve never vibrated?” His eyes drop to the counter.

Point to Emmett, Queen of All Things Not Knowing.

“What disgusting things are you filling his head with?” I feel the hairs on my neck stand at attention and the air in the loft shifts again to a low rumbling buzz, because everything around this little island counter is starting to shift. Me out of the way, Brian in between Justin and me, the vegetable platter being pushed out of Justin’s reach. “Don’t I even get a kiss hello?”

I am of no consequence. I could be sitting in Justin’s lap and I wouldn’t matter. I will never understand how Justin’s teeth don’t just start chattering under the strain of Brian at all cylinders pushed to the max, prowl mode, because *I’m* vibrating. That could also be because I’m leaning as far away from them as possible and teetering on certain disaster when this stool tips over from my weight, but I’m sort of stuck here until Brian decides to move. Maybe not sort of, I could maybe move a little, but I don’t. It’s just too intense.

I look back helplessly at Ted who has long since given up paying attention to the finite differences between the crystal blue waters of the ocean taken from a left angle and the crystal blue waters of the ocean taken from a right angle, because absolutely no one in their right mind at this moment, or any other for that matter, would give a shit. Michael looks over briefly, but goes right back to clicking through the pictures, a little stymied, but not shocked. He just stares straight ahead at the screen in front of him, watching his life go by. I try to catch Ted’s attention with my pleading face and a small pointed wave, but he’s transfixed to the back of Brian’s head waiting for the same certain disaster I am.

Like I said, I’m stuck, for the time being. The troops are otherwise occupied.

“Depends.” That’s Justin’s answer? *That’s* his answer? Depends on what? The direction the Santa Ana winds are blowing?

“On?” Is it just me or do these two just seem to grunt instead of talk? ‘Me want you. You on bed. Now.’ Maybe those blue lights are like homing devices so they can find their way back to the cave without trouble.

“Did you miss me?” He’s not going to answer that. There is no way he’s going to answer that. And if he does, it won’t be with the answer Justin wants. I think about making a run for it, because now would be a good time to get out of the way. Instead I lean into the counter even more, until I can see around Brian’s head to Justin’s face. He doesn’t look away at all. The boy just stares right at him, with bloodshot crystal blue eyes so firm and unrelenting that I feel tears well up for him, in sympathy, because I know they’re about to be crushed.

I think I’m holding the breath for every person in this room, my chest feels so tight.

I see Brian’s head nod so slightly it might just be leftover damage from the blinding flash of the camera. If anyone asks later, I’ll blame it on that. My vision was still a little blurry and I was just imagining that his head moved at all. And I totally don’t see Justin’s eyes soften and fade into a defeated position. I really, really don’t see how much one stupid, tiny little gesture can cut right through all of his hurt, defensive bluster no matter how much he’s fighting against it. I don’t see or understand why Justin would put up with Brian for moments like that. Nope, I don’t bear witness to any of that.

I just see Brian make the first move and lean his face into Justin’s personal space. It’s one thing to kiss someone, that’s intimate in it’s own right, it’s another to get all up in their face in the place they breathe, where they exist and just take it over, like you own the damn space. Justin doesn’t seem to mind this invasion because he remains still and waits until he’s tortured us all thoroughly before he relents and kisses Brian tentatively. There’s no great animal lust, or overwhelming passion. It’s just a kiss, like he might give anyone, but anyone isn’t Brian and no one would dare come that close to someone who’s just anyone to them.

I watch Brian’s hand find Justin’s fingertips and it’s just such a silly, odd thing. I’ve seen him grab worse. But it’s the way Justin’s four fingers twine themselves around one of Brian’s and the rest of Brian’s fingers graze Justin’s palm, like Justin is holding his hand up, but it’s really Brian doing all the work with the back of his hand with that gesture that just gets to me.

I want to take that expensive camera and take a picture of this very moment and shove it at both of them, as living proof for all time that this moment actually existed. But I guess there are just some moments you create that you can’t put on film, because they’re just meant to exist.

But I don’t know anything and all I can see are dotty green goblins in my eyeballs, so I don’t. I just watch their fingers linger and their mouths become a little more reacquainted, feel the static electricity buzz right through them.

I try not to smile.

Those are the moments that come and go in a flash... that actually matter.

Crystal blue persuasion, it’s a new vibration...


	40. Smoke

"Fascinating reading material?" I know it can't be. Advertising trade rags aren't even interesting to me and that's my bread and butter.

I stare at his legs strewn across the coffee table and it takes all my willpower not to tell him to at least have the decency to take his shoes off before disrespecting the furniture. He's burrowed down so deeply in the couch, I can only see his hands holding the magazine above his head. I can almost see the smoke circles forming a pattern in the air above him. I occupy myself with the task at hand, cleaning up the leftover remains of Emmett's vegetable platter.

"How much money do you make a year with bonuses?"

His question startles me. We don't really discuss those kinds of things. There are certain things that are on a need to know basis and that's not something he needs to know. "What are you reading?"

"Some article about the average salary of advertising executives."

Forget the vegetables. I walk to the back of the couch, lean over and grab both ends of the magazine out of his hand, tossing it in the direction of the feet decorated coffee table. "You're far too young to be exposed to such obscenity."

He stares up at my face hovering over him, at my chin, no doubt seeing double of it from that position. "It wasn't all that obscene, that's why I was asking."

"Don't worry about it, I'll make sure you're kept in the manner to which you've become accustomed," I tease and lean closer to his mouth, expecting a kiss, a smile, something. A little pity even. He jars his head away from me instead, as if I'm blocking his view of the wall, and stares blankly at absolutely nothing, fuming. He's still mad about whatever the hell he's mad about and I'm going to suffer endlessly for it. I know why he's mad. I've got the gist of it, I don't need the particulars. It begins and ends with me fucking up. What does it matter what the in between was about?

"That's a fucking shitty thing to say."

Okay, maybe he's mad about something else entirely. Whatever it is, there's no escaping the wrath he's been building in his smoke stacks all afternoon, waiting to purge all over me. Once again, the result remains the same. It's all my fault. I cave in and climb over the back of the couch and fall into the cushions with him until I'm practically using him to sit all over instead of the couch. He elbows his way out from under me.

"I say a lot of shitty things. I thought you'd be used to it by now. At least I'm predictable." I give him the look, the cute one, the "you know you're going to get over it eventually anyway, may as well do it now and save the time" look. He follows me down the path of passive resistance every single time. Except this time. I can't read his reaction. He's just even.

"Acknowledging you're an asshole doesn't make you less of one." He's prickly, and stubborn, and quite fucking annoying. But at least he's still talking. As long as he's talking, it'll work itself out.

"And indulging in your pity parties doesn't seem to make you less pitiful, but I do it anyway. What's your point?" I won't give him this chance to take it all out on me. I've given him far too many already.

"My point is you're an asshole. That's my point." He fakes a grin to emphasize *his* point and drops it just as quickly. I can see the smoke begin to rise to the ceiling. Where there's a spark, there's a flame. He just sits and waits to blow.

I reach for the button on his khaki's and he slaps my hand away. "I'm an asshole. Nothing new there."

"Stop!" The stack comes undone. He really seems to mean it as he wrenches my wrist away from him. "I'm leaving. I shouldn't have come at all."

"Why did you?"

"Because Emmett wanted to welcome me home too. I should have gone with my gut and just stayed there." He sits up a few inches. I can hear the sound of his sneakers dragging along the table.

"You're not really leaving after I just got rid of everyone?" I ask with some implied certainty. But really I just feel dread.

"That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm taking my two perfectly healthy legs and I'm walking away."

He's like a fucking parrot.

"Don't you want to see my tan lines? Oh wait, I don't have any..." This time I can read every bit of disgust on his face. I'm thankful. I can take a lot, but I can't take the dull, muted look in his eyes. It's a look of total defeat. Justin doesn't quit, unless I give him a reason to. I'm not ready for that all over again.

"Fuck you!" He's not the most articulate person when he's angry. He gets points for not beating around the bush however. "Take your pictures, take your tan, take Michael and shove them all up your ass. I'm going home!"

He's halfway off the couch before I grab a handful of his t-shirt and push him back down. "Happy now? You had your moment, for which you get a 9.5 for effort... now talk."

He looks like he might throttle me and I don't particularly blame him. I guess I have one more chance left in me.

"You left me behind. How could you do that?" My throat gets tight from the claustrophobic air in the room. It must be this position, all the oxygen getting caught in my lungs, unable to find a release. I lift my head a little too quickly and stand. I take a few deep breaths to regain my equilibrium and I stare at the wires that hang from the ceiling above. The wires he always thinks are going to set fire to the place. They're totally harmless, at least in comparison to him. All he has to do is sit still and look the way he looks right this very moment with that look I put on his face and I feel my skin sizzle to a crisp and the smoke rise from the ashes of what's left of me.

I don't need this shit. There's nothing in the world that's worth this endlessly repetitive dialogue we keep having. He gets mad, I get mad, we keep chipping away and we get nowhere. I need to get away from this. Away from him. I look down at him, looking up at me, and I don't care how many chins he can see. I would never leave him behind. I just didn't take him with me, because there are places he doesn't need to go. Places I don't want him to go. I sit on the coffee table, before the choice is taken away and my knees buckle without my consent.

"You went away with Daphne. What's the big deal?" I know how ridiculous it sounds before I even say it, but I say it anyway, because I don't know what else to say and because Daphne is always an easy smokescreen to hide behind.

"If you think that's the same thing, then you have serious issues I can't help you with."

"What's the difference?"

He looks like he's choking. He stutters between a few quick breaths and shakes his head back and forth. I can't save myself, how does he expect me to save him? "For one thing, Daphne's not in love with me." Well she was for five minutes, if I recall correctly. But I'm guessing that's not exactly what he means. "For another, I asked you to go with me because I wanted to be with you! That was the only reason. You didn't even think about asking me. You just ran off. I would have gone with you, but I guess there wouldn't have been enough room for me with Michael there." He laughs bitterly.

It doesn't matter about Mikey. It's not a big deal. I've never been in love with him, he's my best friend for Christ's sake! Besides, he's happy and he's in love with someone who loves him back, for once. Justin has nothing to be jealous about. "You had that whole thing planned before I ever set foot in that apartment. Did you really think I was going to say yes?" Minus Grandma, I might have.

"Briiiiaaann, are you listening to me? At all? For, like, half a second?" My name sounds strange all stretched out and distorted like that, but it gets my attention.

"I'm listening and I'm telling you right now Justin, don't make me choose between you and Mikey. That's not a place you want to go." Because I can't and I won't.

"I would never ask you to make that kind of choice," he's emphatic. He looks hurt that I would even suggest something like that. "I'd just like to know that I wouldn't automatically lose. Because I think I would." We just look at each other for a few tense seconds. I don't know what he wants to hear me say, so instead I say nothing. "*That*, right there. That's what fucking kills me. You can't even answer me. You *won't* even try to answer me, even if it's to tell me I'm exactly right." He stares, mournfully, shrugs his shoulders and gives up. Gives in. Just stops trying.

"It was just a vacation. It wasn't even that fun. We would have had a better time," I try. I'm not good at this. I'm going to get this all wrong and that's it, there will be nothing left for him to give me beyond this point.

"You just really don't get it do you? I can't talk to you in riddles anymore." He takes a deep, resigned breath, calming considerably and that bothers me even more. I do get it. I get it so much it scares the shit out of me. He hears everything I don't say, just as loudly as the things I do. He hears my totally silent inability to reassure him. Not that I'm even sure that this is something he needs reassurance about. It should just be that fucking obvious that he doesn't. But he seems to think he does and that should be reason enough for me to do it just because that's the fucking thing a man would do. He leans forward as if his entire body aches from the effort, looks at me with one last hope that I'll come through and make this right and for once concede to something that matters to him without having to pry it out of me. I sit still, unable to move, unable to process a thought, much less lend a hand. "Why are we even bothering? Let's just stop kidding ourselves. I'm not Michael, I won't ever be. I ask for too much. I expect too much. I bother you too much. Well, it's all just a little too much. So now you're getting what you always wanted. For me to leave you alone so you can go back to your life. Congratulations." I feel a swell of anger rising up in me. He stands slowly and looks down at me helplessly. "Later."

I watch his two perfectly healthy legs walk away. From me. This time he doesn't turn around. He reaches the door before I can open my mouth.

"Stay." I say, and I know I say it and even as I'm saying it I know that I'm about to fuck this all up for good, or I'm going to fuck myself. Either way I'm fucked.

"No." I should have expected that. "I'm not doing this again." Doing what? Dragging me by the hair across the cement until I move an inch on my own? If he doesn't do it then no one else will because no one else would be able to put up with as much bullshit as he has and then throw it back in my face. Not even Michael, especially not Michael. "If you have something to say, then say it. Don't talk around it, just say it. Otherwise I'm going."

I realize he's not just puffing smoke, he's fully prepared to just walk away. It's not a game of calling my bluff, it's not a temper tantrum. It's him letting go for his own good. I needed that. For some reason I guess I needed to know that he was fully capable of it, that there's only so much he can take. I don't know why, I just needed to know that he could be on his own without me. That the only thing that would fall apart is me. Not him, especially not him. I need him to not do that.

I realize I'm not ready for him to go.

"You started this. For once, you're going to finish it and not run out the fucking door or away from me." I threaten. "I'm not the one who runs. So get your ass back over here because I'm just as fucking tired of this as you are." There, I said it. Sort of.

He doesn't come back, but he doesn't leave either. He just stands and waits, one hand on the door. I feel the blood beginning to circulate in my legs again and I stand and walk half the way towards him.

"I'm tired of the drama queen shit. I'm tired of you throwing yourself prostrate on the ground like some broken fucking fragile china doll. If you were really hurt, you know I would do whatever I could to make sure you were okay. You know that." I give him no real time to respond. Because I'm not going to go there with him, because I can't and because the more time I have to think about what I'm saying, the less I feel like I'm actually going to survive getting through it. "You don't get to walk out every time it gets to be a little too much and you don't get to expect that you can come back anytime you want." Even though you probably could, but you don't need to know that. "You *really* don't get to be mad because I pulled the same shit on you that you pull on me all the time. So here's your choice, you're either going to stay or you're going to go." I feel the walls move closer to me and feel my feet want to charge past him and out the door. "You say you want us to try, well welcome to fucking trying." My words are surprisingly mellow, because there's nothing left in me to give him. This is as much as he's ever going to get.

"This is your idea of trying?" He asks with a certain amount of disbelief, but also a certain amount of expectance. "And who the fuck are you to get to say what I do and don't get to do? I certainly don't get to tell you, Mr. Every Man For Himself, what to do or how to feel!" He's so incensed his hand lets go of the door and he moves towards me, without even realizing it. He can no longer hear what I'm trying to say or see me giving an inch. "You might not run, but you sure as hell know how to hide. Right in front of me, no less. You leave me lying in a hospital for six weeks thinking you don't give a shit and the whole time you're there. What the fuck is that? You're tired of me, well I'm tired of you playing the martyr! If you ask me I think we're pretty fucking even in the drama department."

The absurd realization that this might be the most we've ever said to each other in one conversation crosses my mind briefly and now I know why I'd rather speak without a sound. Because once you start talking, it just never ends. That thought is quickly replaced with the realization that only a foot or so separates us now.

He considers my form, in that way only he can. Watches me shrug my shoulders in response, in concession. He's the artist, he's the one who sees something more than just flesh and bones, he sees beauty and truth in movement and shadows and light that the rest of the world doesn't see. He closes his eyes and sighs so loudly and dramatically, I almost laugh again because it's just like him to do that. And I'm sort of grateful that I know him well enough to know that it's just like him to do that. I just don't know him well enough to assume he can see I'm all smoke and mirrors. No one else has managed to figure it out, why should he be any different?

He lifts his eyelids and he looks at me. He really, really looks at me, like maybe he's never seen me before and I feel my gut tense. I wait... for him to follow. Because there are places he goes without invitation. He just worms his way in. "Well then try to understand how much things like that fucking hurt me."

"I know, okay? I just do. You don't have to explain." I hold my hand up, to halt whatever question I'm sure is next, because I've reached my limit. I can't explain anymore.

He reaches out and pushes my hand out of the way, pushing himself forward towards me, unwilling to let himself be dismissed. "Then try not to do it. I know you can't always stop yourself, because you're just you. But you can do better than this."

"What makes you so sure?" I feel the hollow part of me slowly fill with something I can't identify and settle in my gut.

"Because if I wasn't, then both of us would really be totally beyond help, and I don't believe that."

"Does this mean you're staying?" He blinks and considers the unexpected question. I am totally fucked either way.

I would never make him stay where he didn't want to be, but I'm not sure I'm capable of letting him go... wherever... whenever he wants.

I'm not sure I have a choice in the matter anymore.


	41. Iridescent

I don't want to stay. Well that's not true, I *want* to stay. I just don't want to want that. I want to be able to walk out the door like I was half a foot from doing and never look back. I'm sure it would be easier to follow my feet and just wind up wherever I wind up, than to keep following my heart and winding up here.

In this place.

It's a beautiful place sometimes, all gilded corners and iridescent specks of light. But when it's empty and your voice echoes back at your ears, unheard by anyone but you, it's like nothing you've ever felt before. Totally alone.

And it fucking sucks to be all alone in this place.

I don't want to want to forgive him. I don't want to want him. I don't want him to have any kind of valid point about anything at the moment. I don't want him to have any kind of power over me. I don't want to do any of this anymore.

I just want it to not be that difficult every once in a while.

I want to know that he'd never let me get further than the door, locks or no locks, I don't care.

What I really want is to find a new way to do all of this.

"I can't stay." I could, but tonight, I really can't.

The corner of his mouth twitches slightly, his body remains still, the rest of his face remains as it was. I know that's all I'm ever going to get. No running after me, no begging me, no punched in the gut doubled over in pain reactions. Nobody preventing me from walking out the door. Possibly nobody even caring if I did. Not a single word. Nothing but a twitch. Sometimes I think I may as well just be here alone, because it hurts more when he's physically here with me. I can just pretend the rest of the time.

"I take it you've made your choice then. To go?" His shoulders rise and fall in a shrug that would look like disbelief, if I didn't know better. If he were anyone but who he is. "Well, I can't say I blame you. You lasted a lot longer than I would have." He digs his hands in the pockets of his jeans. I want to hug him. I don't want to want to do that. But I want to do it anyway.

"Is that the great Brian Kinney admitting some kind of defeat?" I want him to know just how much it sucks.

"It wasn't a competition." He blinks languidly and reopens his eyes to half mast, as if they may be burning under his lids.

"What was it?" I want an answer. It doesn't have to be the right answer. It doesn't even have to be a good answer. I just want him to open his mouth and answer. Please let him answer.

"I don't know. But whatever it was... it was real." He nods a defeated acknowledgment. "Really fucked up most of the time more than anything," he sort of laughs and I sort of laugh with him, "but it was honest. It happened. I was always there, even when you thought I wasn't. You didn't imagine it."

Good answer.

"Christ, you're such a drama queen," I smile widely, hoping the light shimmers off my teeth and blinds him.

"What?" His eyes open immediately.

"I just said I couldn't stay," I roll my eyes sharply and I try not to laugh or tackle him. "I never said I was going. It's not my fault you heard what you wanted to hear."

"What the fuck does that mean?" He looks confused and perturbed. I might not get a choice if he jumps on top of me first. Which from the looks of his stance, seems far more likely.

"I have plans tonight. I can't stay. I told that guy Russell that I'd go see some photography series with him."

I walk around him with as much confidence as my shaky knees allow, my head held high and my ass not far below. I look back over my shoulder at the frozen look of blood thirsty revenge on his face and I do laugh, just because I know he doesn't want me to.

"You little...."

"Twat, yeah yeah I know. Thanks. Love you too." I rest my confident ass on the stairs leading to the bedroom, and lean my elbows on the floor behind me, stretched all over his space. "Kinda sucks to be you right now, huh?"

He walks towards me, or rather, he stomps towards me with heavy bare feet. "You did that on purpose!"

"You deserved it." I consider sticking my tongue out, but that would just be too immature, no matter how satisfying it would feel. "Now you know what it's like to have a conversation with you," I smirk, satisfied with myself.

"And you deserve my foot up your ass, does that mean I get to give it to you?"

He stands on the bottom step, looming over my outstretched body, trying to intimidate me. "Not without socks on, your feet are filthy. You always walk around without socks. That's really unhealthy you know. Who knows what kind of germs you pick up."

He waves his right foot over my mouth and I gag. He's so gross. "Want to lick it and find out?" I move my head away from his very long toes. Very... very long toes. He moves it away and sticks it in my crotch instead, threatening to add pressure if I keep speaking.

"I let you off easy! I let you get away with way too much as is." I do and he knows it and the big toe digging into my zipper tells me so.

"Oh I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be paying for quite some time."

"As you should... Leave me to deal with my grandmother for a fucking week," I mumble to myself, and feel him leverage more weight on his foot, "while you run around and fuck everything in sight, in paradise, with Michael." It comes out a little more surly than I intended and I don't care.

"So which part are you more jealous about?" His foot travels to my belly button and whatever vein connects from that to my groin is on fucking fire.

"Every last part..." Every last fucking part. So jealous I could grab his foot, flip him on his ass onto the floor and kick him while he's down.

"Don't be," he toes at my shirt to get my attention, "about Mikey." He sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth and I consider it. It's more than a twitch. It's more than I ever expected. It's something isn't it? He finally stops playing with my stomach and moves his foot to box me in between his legs, here on his stairs that I've taken complete ownership of. He looks about 10 feet tall from this position, and the crotch right in my line of vision looks ten times larger than normal.

"I don't give a shit about Mikey. I give a shit that you give more of a shit about him than you do about me." Not even a twitch. Right, no answer, as I expected. Because he only hears what he wants to hear, no matter what I'm saying.

"I said, don't be," he reiterates. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe if he wasn't hovering over me like some imposing statue I'd argue the point. But he's already left that far behind, there will be no further discussion. Until next time. Which I'm sure there will be because Brian choosing Mikey is about as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. I'll just keep talking until he hears me. I guess I don't let him get away with much. I'm just getting better at biding my time. "Besides you don't see me getting jealous that you picked Grandma over me," he mocks the concept with his saccharine voice.

"She pays better than you do. After all, I do have standards to maintain."

He laughs for the first time. "What does that mean? She had to bribe you to come visit her?"

"No, she just did what they do in the country club set, threw money at the problem."

"Maybe I took the wrong trip after all," he crouches down to a more human level and I hope he doesn't fall and crack my sternum in half.

"She said she was sick of seeing me so miserable. So she forked over some cash, called it 'mad money', said her father used to give it to her when he wanted her out of his hair. Go mad with it. Go burn it. Go kiss it. Just go away and take the long face with you."

"How much was the pay off?"

"1500. I think the guilt from not being around last year worked in my favor."

"What are you going to do with it?"

I haven't really thought about it. I was too busy trying not to fall apart at the seams. "I heard there was this really nice resort in Puerto Vallarta..."

"Don't be a smart ass," he flicks my forehead with the snap of his fingers. "I could use a new suit," he grins.

"You could use a gift certificate to a board certified psychotherapist."

"Which would make you the more certifiable one, for knowing that and putting up with me anyway." He always has to have the last word. I hate that. His smile glimmers and fills the air around us with just a hint of the iridescent streaks that are allowed to reside here every now and then.

"Could you move your ass, so I can leave?" I don't want to go.

"You don't really want to go." It's official, we need to keep at least five feet of distance between us at all times so that I can have a moment's worth of privacy in my own head. The closer he is the clearer the message.

"I promised Russell. I can't break my promise." I don't want to go, but now I have to, just out of principle.

"I'm sure you have some time. He's got 6 feet of hair he has to comb out first." He crowds his face about three inches away from mine, finally relenting and resting his knees on the second stair and officially pinning me to the floor.

"Why are you so obsessed with his body hair?" I can't help it, I snicker. It really is kind of disgusting to think about.

"You're worried about the germs on my feet. I'm worried about whatever's nesting in his hair." He kisses me just below my bottom lip and pulls back as my lip juts out instinctively for more. Fucker. "Did you really look at him? Because I did and he could probably build a hut with that shit for one of those starving orphans they advertise on TV."

"Only you would think of that as advertising. Besides, if he's got something crawling around in there, it's not like I'm ever gonna get close enough to find out what it is." I lean up and lick his bottom lip for being such a tease.

"Sure about that?"

"Don't be... about Russell." He grabs both sides of my face and lavishes my mouth with the perfect perfectness of his own. That's what I miss the most when I don't have it, his mouth. When I get it back, I never want to let it go. He tries to pull his head back but I keep him attached by sucking on his tongue and his hands trail down the front of my t-shirt. My head is swirling. I don't want to give in this easily, but I don't want to stop. "I guess I have a little while before I have to go." And I will go, just not right this minute.

"Good," he murmurs.

"What do you want?" I know what I want and it's perfectly unselfish because that's just the kind of guy I am and because there's something I miss almost as much when it's not in my mouth. But I'm willing to negotiate. I wasn't very nice before, not that he didn't deserve it, but he gave me what I wanted, he should get something in return.

"My cock in your mouth." Too fucking close. I refuse to think around him anymore.

"Stand up," I command and he does as told, looking like one massive groin. I sit up and yank the zipper of his jeans down. No underwear. What else is new?

His eyes glaze with the sureness of his own hunger and I feed the emptiness that's been there too long.


	42. Ivory

If it were up to my mother, I'd probably still be washing my hair with Ivory soap instead of wasting away my money. When I was little she scrubbed every inch of my body from my toes to my scalp with Ivory, until the dead cells were flaking off. Even now, I can't use it because that distinct odor makes me want to gag from the memories it scares up. Mom's a no nonsense bitch who's a creature of a certain kind of contradictory habit, from a different time and place. She's the last of a dying breed who believes that 'change' is a four letter word, and a casserole in all its various mutations is the only necessary meal in life. God love her for it, even if my hair and waist don't. Thank God I discovered the joys of conditioner and sushi is all I have to say.

Even when the world left her behind, she still managed to be years ahead of most of humanity without even trying, and if I told her that now she'd laugh in my face. If something's not broken, why bother fixing it, but if it is broken why bother paying someone else to fix it when you can do it yourself is just the kind of motto she lives by. She'd be the first one to dig in and just get it done, no muss, no fuss. If that meant crawling on her knees hammering on the motor of the old fridge or scrubbing me until I was nearly raw, then so be it. When in doubt, put a little elbow grease into it.

If I had followed her advice I would probably be married with four brats, I'm sorry, loving children running underfoot right now. Nothing would please her more than a few more grandchildren to traumatize with a bar of Ivory soap. Luckily for me, I got my independent streak from her.

Unfortunately for Brian, I got my independent streak from her.

Mom's not shy and neither am I. I'm also no one's fool. So when he handed me that disk and told me to print off the files and not ask any questions or he'd bump me down to reception, did he honestly think he was going to get away that easily? Silly boy.

72 very dull pictures later, I finally hit the jackpot. I printed that sucker three times. One copy he could throw in the trash, another that would amazingly find its way to his drawer and stay there despite the first one being tossed, and still a third for his Christmas present. I think I'll frame it and put it on his desk and have wallet sized prints made, just to strike a chord. Let him know that I'm not above using a little emotional blackmail to remind him just how many secrets of his I hold and how invaluable I am because of that. Surely I should be rewarded for my loyalty. I'm thinking, money, time off, perhaps a little something from Tiffany's.

I've waited all afternoon for my opportunity and finally his meetings have ended and he's good and tense. I can make it easy for him, or I can bust his balls...

"So, I was thinking, maybe we should get you one of those serenity fountains. You could listen to the babbling brook all day and relieve your stress." I glide into his office, practically walking on air like the angel that I am.

"Fill it with vodka and you've got a deal." That's a good sign. Hell, he was almost pleasant.

"How'd the presentation go this morning?" I put the pictures on the corner of his desk and wait for a reaction.

"Brilliant as always." He's preoccupied with the copy for his newest account, chewing on one of his fingernails. That's a sure sign of his concentration.

"What are all these pictures you had me print? Did you even relax while you were away or did you sit there and come up with a new campaign for boosting tourism in Mexico? It's like looking at a brochure. You're only in one of the pictures!" So I'm the naughty angel, so what? They're always the most interesting.

"Did I say reception? I meant janitorial staff!" Finally, he acquiesces and looks briefly towards them.

"Does Vance know this is what you have your poor, put upon assistant do all day? Use office supplies to print your personal photos?" I slide them closer to his vantage point, and drum my fingers on the desk.

"Why? Is it coming out of your paycheck?" He gives my tapping fingers a once over.

"In a way it is. If you added together the price of that printer, the toner cartridge and the three packages of photo paper it took to print them and added the 7% sales tax, I could have gotten a 14.37 cent an hour raise." The longer I talk, the less choice he has but to listen long enough to get me out of his hair.

"Did you do the math all by yourself?" he smirks and puts his copy down long enough to remove my fingers from his desk and grab the photos.

"As a matter of fact I did." I sit my ass down in one of his new leather back chairs. Another 26 cent an hour, down the drain. "The only worthwhile picture in there is the one of Justin." Maybe I could ask for another ten bucks an hour, that would be one way to use my evil for the purposes of good. I toss my very clean, very conditioned blonde head to the side and smile pretty, just like the lady my mother always taught me to be.

"There is no picture of Justin. Have you been drinking from my non-existent serenity fountain?" He thumbs through the glossy remains of his week in Puerto Vallarta until he spies my ticket to another week's vacation, Justin's photograph.

I snarl at the top of his head bent over the picture. "That is Justin, isn't it?" I've seen him briefly in person a couple of times, and his picture in the paper after that awful incident. The picture looks like him, only it doesn't. He looks intense, like he's looking right through the camera lens and staring at you. I can't tell where it was taken, it looks like some kind of doorway, but all I see is blurry metal on the sides. It looks like a prison cell.

He considers the photo while gnawing on what's left of his stubbly fingertip, as if the ad man that constantly lives in his brain is dissecting what the image is trying to sell. It's obviously the first time he's seen it. In fact, I wonder if he even knew it existed at all. "Where did this come from?" he asks himself, more than me.

"I don't know, it was on that disk. I assume it's yours?" He tears his eyes from the picture and oh so casually slides it away from his immediate concentration. But not so far that he couldn't see it out of the corner of his eye. If he were so inclined, of course.

"Yeah, that must have been Emmett's fumbling handiwork." He flinches briefly at revealing that bit of information. Getting details out of him is as difficult as I imagine it would be to pry the Ivory out of my mother's cold, dead hands. "Don't you have something you need to be doing?"

"I could go run and buy a frame and you could put it on the desk," I chirp helpfully. A little part of me gets a thrill at the prospect that he might actually do it. The larger part of me keeps my eye on the prize, early retirement courtesy of knowing when to push my boundaries. Like I always say about Brian, there's the easy way, and then there's busting his balls. When in doubt, put a little elbow grease into it.

"Did you know that hag from reception is back from maternity leave? I saw her myself this morning. She's the one who married that guy from human resources you were fucking for a while a few years ago, isn't she? I'm sure you two will get along splendidly down there." He cackles unmercifully because he plays this game almost as well as I do.

I am undeterred and very, very used to him by now. I'll give him a nagging hag if that's what he wants.

"Don't you want to know why I'm so interested in the cost of printing your very, very boring pictures? Oh, and by the way if that's the best you can do with a camera, it's a wonder you've gotten this far in this field." God only knows what my mother put in her casseroles but I'm convinced at this stage in my life that it involved some kind of synthetic hormones, because I have no other explanation for the balls I managed to grow without a penis attached to them.

"I only took a couple of them, and no not really. I am, however, very interested in finishing reading this report so that I can leave before midnight tonight. So... goodbye." Class dismissed. He swivels his chair so that I'm staring at his back and paws the photographs, grabbing a random handful to toss on his credenza. Not so random that the one of Justin isn't still on top, however. Maybe I won't have to put a spare in his drawer after all, because it's gotten further than I ever expected. But I guess that's Justin isn't it? Judging from the marked increase in his phone calls, at least.

"I got a look at a memo Vance is about to send around."

That gets his attention.

He turns around and leans back in his chair, not even bothering with the politeness of asking what might have been in the memo, or how I came to see it. He just sits, in all of his expectant glory, waiting for me to spill without any kind of coercion, because he knows I will.

"It seems he's carrying on your favorite Ryder tradition. The company morale picnic. Aren't you excited?" That wipes his smug grin right off his face. "I take it he didn't inform you, his partner? Hate to be the one to break it to you then. Oh, I forgot the best part!" I playfully slap my head and pull out my old cheerleading voice. "You get to be the co-host!"

"He has to be kidding me!? Why are we wasting all this money in this economy?" He sifts through the papers on his desk for a pad and a pen. I lean over and pull one out from my side of the desk and hand it to him. Call it instinct or call it a way to keep his hands occupied so that they don't throw any heavy objects at my head.

"Need I remind you of all the money you spent on that little fete you had me plan at Babylon a few months ago without his permission?" Loyal to a fault, that's me.

"That was business." He's immediately defensive.

"Yeah, none of Vance's as I recall. Besides, what's the big deal? It's our annual morale booster. You were just hoping someone forgot to tell him about it," I snicker.

"You're the one who reminded him, aren't you? Always on my ass about doing the right thing for the staff and rewarding them for hard work. Have you learned nothing from me?" It's a good-natured if somewhat annoyed response. More about Vance than about me, I'm sure.

"I didn't tell him. Evelyn and I had a discussion about the staff and she practically licked her own chops when I mentioned it. I'm sure it got back to him because she runs and tells him everything." He raises an eyebrow at me, yeah so what, I'm a hypocrite, but as long as I'm loyal to him, he shouldn't care. I know I don't need to explain myself, but I feel the need to defend my honor anyway. "I bet he wants everyone who survived the bloodletting to feel secure and feel like we're getting back into our normal routines even as he's thinking of ways to stab us all in the back in the middle of the night." If it isn't broken, why bother fixing it and if it is why pay someone else to fix it when you can do it yourself? "He is in advertising after all! Who knows how to sell crap better than him? Present company excluded of course."

"Well then why doesn't he just go buy everyone a fucking teddy bear and tell them a bedtime story?" he singsongs while he scribbles furiously. "The only reason people even show up at that thing is for the free booze."

"No that's the only thing *you* show up for. The rest of us like to kid ourselves into believing management gives a shit one day out of the year... What are you writing?" It's damn distracting whatever it is.

"I'm adding up the costs of this little patsy party."

"Why? I know for a fact it's not going to come out of your salary, that's for sure. It'll be the excuse we get next year when our raises don't budge an inch." Other than mine, for which I have Justin to thank for looking so handsome in high gloss. So handsome that your very appreciative boyfriend will want to stare at you endlessly and I will be the only one who knows what he looks at when he opens the drawer in the middle of a meeting where he's about to blow his top. Knowing those kinds of secrets are just as invaluable to me as I am to him.

"You think he might have mentioned this in, oh I don't know," he grimaces "the four meetings we had between yesterday and today?"

"Well it's over and done with. You can bitch each other out later for making decisions without consulting one another. My question is how many places am I supposed to reserve for you? I'm sure they're going to want the rough estimates of attendance by the end of the week. And you never tell me until the last minute," I remind him.

"Why should I have to tell you? It's the same every fucking year." Yes I know that, we all know that, nothing ever changes. Until it does, that is.

"I know you bring Michael so that you don't make a total ass out of yourself with the free booze, but I was thinking..." he stops moving his pen, but doesn't look up, "that maybe you'd want me to reserve a third spot, or maybe even a fourth?"

"Why would I want to do that?" His voice positively drips with acid.

Fortunately for me I did inherit that independent streak from my mother, the same streak that tells me that fierce loyalty to a product or a person is all well and good but that sometimes change can be just as good and just as necessary.

"It is a *family* event. Maybe you'd like to bring your son?"

"Are you volunteering to chase after a toddler in the middle of potty training all day, while his father gets good and plastered?" he cracks.

I'm sure I'd love the little ... darling.

"Okay forget Gus," he nods as if to say 'I thought you'd see it my way'. Silly, silly boy, indeed. "You could bring Justin. A boyfriend is the next closest thing to family. I'm sure Vance will bring some knockout, just to show everyone up. Do him one better." 'Stop, drop and roll' suddenly springs to mind when I catch the flicker in his eye. Maybe I'll wash my mouth out with Ivory when I get home.

"If no son of mine is attending, then there's no way in hell a boyfriend of mine is."

He looks up and I say nothing, because there is simply nothing to say. Now that it's out in the open, there's no taking it back.

"Why not? Since when do you give a shit who knows you're gay? It's not like it's a state secret around here." I think of the picture sitting behind him and it quite honestly amazes me that I'm having this conversation with Brian, of all people. I never thought I'd live to see the day.

"I don't care if the entire company decides to hold its picnic in the Liberty baths and watches me get blown by half of gay Pittsburgh. I'm not bringing him." He closes the door on the subject, but sometimes when life hands you a closed door, you kick it wide open.

"So it's not because you're gay. It's because you have a boyfriend. What do you think everyone assumed Michael was, all those years?"

That seems to surprise him. It's not like they were all over each other or anything, but they were obviously comfortable together. It's just that year after year, when an out gay man shows up with the same guy over and over, you start to wonder. If I showed up with the same guy year after year, and he wasn't my brother, everyone would assume there was something more there. Of course no one else answers his phones or deals with him on a day to day basis the way I do, so they just assume whatever they want to, but it's not an unfair assumption. I made the mistake of assuming it when I first started working with him. It's a natural mistake. The way I see it, now is his time to correct it.

"Just tell them to expect two." I wish I could say I knew that meant he was bringing Justin, but he'd be contrary enough not to, just to spite me.

"Don't let Vance intimidate you. If he can bring his latest bimbo as arm candy, I don't see why you can't bring someone you actually care about." I rise out of the chair and walk a safe distance to the door. "Three. In case you change your mind."

"If you bring that disgusting casserole dish with you, you're fired!" he yells to my retreating form.

Mom would be proud. She'd probably dunk my head in freezing cold water and scrub the Ivory in until it became a natural bleaching agent, but she'd be proud. I know I am, and if I know Brian at all, I know he will be too. In fact, I'm counting on it.


	43. Orange

It's not that I don't appreciate the party. I do. I just need a minute to myself, some place to breathe and not have to nod my head and smile in gratitude. I am grateful. I am. I'm just overwhelmed and still not feeling 100%. Not to mention a little freaked out from my father being that close. I'm sure Brian would tell me to forget all about it and enjoy myself, but I'm as likely to do that as he is. I'm also wanting to kill him for deserting me the minute we walked in the door, but that's nothing new. I'm always wanting to kill him for something or other. The minute he saw Molly attached to my mother's hip, he made a beeline for the makeshift bar that Emmett is presiding over. I think he thought he was doing the right thing by giving me a few minutes alone with my sister and I appreciate it, but she's long gone now. I don't even want to imagine how drunk he's getting. I think we've shared enough puke stained memories to last us a good long while over the past couple of days.

It's awfully loud in this house, with so many bodies crammed together conversing freely over the music. It's amazing the number of people you amass in your life over the years. There's your family *family*, your makeshift family of friends, your friends who aren't exactly family but aren't your acquaintances, the people you work with and go to school with. Then there are the friends of the friends and family who just show up because it's a party and no one wants to come alone.

I scan the crowd briefly looking at the little clusters of people in various corners. Everyone seems like they're having a pretty good time. There's lots of laughter, even some dancing, and no one looks particularly out of place, except maybe me, all by myself trying to find a trap door to escape through. It's like looking at a snapshot of my high school cafeteria all over again. It seems like such a long time ago. Jocks with jocks, brains with brains, stoners with stoners, the loners and a few strays here and there floating in and out of groups. There's my family, mom and grandma, my aunt and a couple of cousins that mom insisted I invite. There's my makeshift family made up of all the guys, Mel, Lindz, Debbie and Vic. There are a few people I work with at the diner, some guys I run into pretty regularly at Babylon and Woody's and some guys and girls I've gotten to know through school. Daphne, the social queen that she is, seems to be in six different spots at once. She doesn't have a care in the world about who she talks to. Russell leans awkwardly on the wall. He's too old for the art school crowd and too in the closet for almost everyone else. Maybe I'll stick Cynthia on him, she's good at making perfect strangers talk to one another.

There's only one person missing. Who knows where he would fit in this crowd.

I squeeze my way past some friends of the friends and family who probably don't even know or care who I am, which suits me just fine. Less people I have to smile for. Finally, I make my way to the kitchen which has been declared off limits to anyone not involved in serving food or drinks. I figure that doesn't apply to me since being the birthday boy has its own privileges like access to uncrowded space. I'm not really hungry, but I pop a pig in the blanket in my mouth anyway. What I really want is some fresh air. I know that sounds so childish and ungrateful, but it's not like I asked for this party. Suddenly turning 21 doesn't seem like a milestone anymore, it seems like climbing a mountain with a two ton pack of everyone else's expectations on my back. If we could find a way to make the results live up to those expectations maybe we all wouldn't walk around so disappointed all the time when they don't. I'm sure Brian would say the only way to do that is to lower your expectations. Luckily, I don't subscribe to that theory. I am, however, starting to see the beauty in Brian's theory about birthdays. Just cover your head with a blanket and forget the day exists, that way you don't let anyone else down, especially yourself.

You'd still wake up a year older the next day anyway. Minus the gifts. Scratch that, there's no upside to that theory.

"I thought I'd never get you alone."

Melanie's voice startles me and a chunk of dough gets caught in my throat. She slaps my back harder than necessary, and I settle down with a few coughs. What is it with people slapping me on the back today? "I didn't realize you wanted to." I talk through my chewing, which is rude, but manners aren't exactly high on the list of priorities among this crowd. "You don't have any weird boxes to show me do you?" I tease.

"What?" She looks as confused as I was disgusted by Brian's suggestion this morning.

"Nothing... so, what's up?" I look around for something to drink and she tosses me a beer.

"Your first legal drink. Not that that's stopped you all this time," she says with that odd mix of sugar and piss when she's judging but joking and joking about the judging, which is almost always the case. "I have something that I'm supposed to deliver to you privately from Gus since he couldn't be here. Lindsay had to help him out a little."

She opens one of the drawers and pulls out a white piece of construction paper, folded to look like a card. The front of it has the normal scribble scrabble drawings of a toddler, some green lines that might be grass and some yellow splotch that might be a sun, a few stick figures that may or may not be all of us or aliens. I can't really tell. There's no latent artistic genius from either of his biological parents to be found here, that's for sure. At least he made the effort with a card, which is more than I can say for his father. On the other hand, his father did cough up his beloved jeep, so there's that.

I open the card and read Lindsay's handwriting in big orange crayon "Knock knock! Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange-ya glad to see me? Happy Birthday Uncle Judd. Love, Gus" I snort and the beer feels like it's burning a trail straight to my sinuses. "Did he make that up himself?"

"I think one of his little pre-school friends told him. He thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever heard," she smiles, proud of him. "Cracks him up every time he tells it and you can't help but laugh. So you should feel honored that he made Lindsay write it down." She fusses with some platter of cheese and grapes to occupy herself.

It's always awkward when we discuss Gus, because I'm not one of his parents and that's okay by me. I'm just fine being Uncle Judd. I can never tell if it bothers her more that Brian won't treat me like an equal parent because she thinks he doesn't treat me like an equal anything, or if it's because I don't push him on that particular issue because I don't really want to be another father to Gus. I have a feeling if I did, she'd get defensive about that as well.

It's ironic, then, that she's probably one of the main reasons I'm even standing in this kitchen. I'm sure she regrets it every day of her life and even under threats of torture she wouldn't admit to having any part in it, but she did. That's Melanie, one contradiction after another.

"So you have a little entertainer in the making on your hands." I swig back a sip of my beer and feel it slide its way down my throat. It's amazing how long it takes one swallow to make its way through your system. Are these the things you start thinking about at 21? How you start judging time by measuring how long it takes to do everything and how much of it you're wasting?

"Well he definitely takes after his drama queen father when he throws a tantrum." Some things never change, no matter how much time passes. It always takes about 6 seconds before Melanie insults Brian. I shrug my shoulders. "I didn't mean to say that, I'm sorry. It's just second nature sometimes."

We lock eyes briefly and I think that maybe she's not lying because she seems like she's biting her tongue about something. "He loves him, you know?"

Her head nods in amazement at the mere possibility. "I know, and Gus loves him back. That used to bother me, but not anymore. I should probably thank you for that." She punches my shoulder playfully, well as playfully as Melanie can get. "As much as it pains me to admit it," she lets out a long sigh "you're a good influence on him."

"He's a good influence on me." She rolls her eyes derisively.

"In what, teaching you the finer points of sucking cock?" I watch her turn her back and open the refrigerator, searching for some newly urgent distraction. She can't face me when she says things like that, because she knows that I know it's a crock of shit, but she can't stop herself from saying it to start with.

I could defend him in a million different ways, but I won't, because I know he wouldn't want anyone else to know that kind of stuff. That's between the two of us. "Yeah, something like that." There's a heavy moment of silence between us and I can see her struggling with some kind of dilemma about whether to pursue the point or let it go for my sake. I save her the trouble of deciding. "Is that my cake?" I can see something pink with white trim on the top shelf.

"Shit, look the other way, you're not supposed to see this!" She tries to block my view, but at 21, I'm a little more swift than she's ready for.

I peek my head around her body and do a double take. "Oh my God... that's scary!"

We both lean our heads to the side in unison trying to make it out.

"Your mother said it was very life-like, she wasn't kidding."

"Where did they get that from?"

"I have no idea." She snaps the refrigerator shut. "Don't tell anyone I showed you. It's supposed to be a surprise." I'm glad I was prepared in advance, because I think I might have cried if I hadn't been. "Now instead of moping around this kitchen, will you please go celebrate? You only turn 21 once."

Thank God, because I feel like I might have aged ten years in one day. I just nod my head. "I'll be back out in a minute."

She stops and adjusts the collar of my black sweater. It must be a mother thing. "Let me guess, Armani?" I won the battle of the beige pants, the least I could do was give him the black sweater. "If you're looking for your Prince Charming, I suggest you look elsewhere, but if you're looking for Brian, he's in the backyard." She kisses my cheek quickly and gives me one last long look as if considering whether that was the right advice to give me before she trounces out of the kitchen. One foot after the other. One contradiction after another.

I pop the top on a bottle of beer and make my way to the back door. He stands with one foot casually swinging the seat on Gus's old rusty swing set, blowing rings of smoke in the freezing night air.

"Knock knock..."

"I see you got Gus's card."

I walk up behind him and nudge him with the bottle of beer I'm offering. "Just answer the question."

"Who's there," he asks dryly, grinding his cigarette out on the pole behind him, replacing it with the beer instead. He always has to keep his hands occupied somehow.

"Banana."

"Banana? That's not the joke..." he leans back on the metal pole,

"I know. Orange-ya glad I didn't say orange?" I crack myself up at my own adolescent sense of humor. It really is one of those timeless jokes that you can't help but at least be a little amused by because even he laughs while trying not to. I'll never tell another living soul.

"And they say you're the mature one."

"They say a lot of things." He just nods his head because he knows that better than anyone. "What are you doing out here by yourself?" My teeth start to chatter instinctively and he responds by pulling me closer to his chest and wrapping his free arm around my back. I wrap my arms around his waist under his leather jacket and lean my head on his collarbone.

"Too many people in there." This from the man who still works the crowds at Babylon on a pretty regular basis. It's his code speak for feeling uncomfortable. His hand roams lazily around my back. It doesn't do much to fight the cold, but I feel a little warmer anyway.

"Same here. Maybe we can sneak out early?" I ask suggestively, looking up at him considering the idea.

"Pretend like you're sick and tell them we have to go home?" I smile in response.

"No one can resist having sympathy for a cherub struck down by a dread disease. Not even you." I pretend to faint against his chest and that just makes him hold tighter, even though he knows I'm faking it.

"You don't fool me. You just want your present."

I hadn't even thought about it. I really hadn't. But now that he's mentioned it...

"Foiled again." I squeeze his body closer to mine, sucking him dry of any heat he's retaining. It's so warm right here, right this second. "Briiiaaaannn... Don't make me stay in there by myself with them. Come back in with me." I plead.

"Let me finish my beer first." He takes a long, slow sip, in no rush to return to the festivities. His breathing seems normal, his muscles aren't tense and he's going out of his way to relax me and warm me up. He could just push me off him and tell me to go back inside before I make myself even more ill. There's something definitely off here.

"What's up? Why are you really out here?" He stops swinging his foot on the seat and joins it with his other foot on the ground.

"I'm trying to give you your moment in the sun. But you're ruining it by following me out here." His hand cups the back of my neck, his fingers make circles on my skin.

I hadn't considered that and from the serious look on his face, I believe that he probably does believe that and it probably is true. "I think you need me out here, more than I need to be in there."

"Save your concern for tomorrow. It's *your* day and there's not much time left in it. Enjoy it and stop worrying about me."

Time. How much do we have and how much are we wasting?

"I'm 21 now."

"Thanks for the status update." I kiss him roughly and unexpectedly, my lips just want to crush his mouth and sink inside of his warmth. Instead they lap up the remainder of beer in his mouth. I breathe heavily into his lungs, breathe the life in me into him. His hand responds gratefully, holding onto my neck with intense purpose. I don't care how much time passes or how much older we get, I can't imagine not wanting to kiss this mouth.

I pull back and he leans his cheek against my forehead.

"Gus will be 4 in a few months. You'll be 33 soon enough. Seems like time is marching on whether you want it to or not and I'm still not going anywhere."

"What happens when you regret that?" he practically whispers.

"Don't... don't do that." He wraps his other arm around my neck, careful to keep the freezing cold bottle away from my skin. "You wouldn't let me freak out before, I'm not going to let you do it now. I know my own mind, I know what I want. That's never changed. It's always been you."

"Don't let me break you," his warm mouth trails down the bridge of my nose as he speaks, until his forehead is leaning on my own. "I can't... I can't be like him," he takes a deep breath. "You can't let me do that."

I feel my hands taking over his back, ignoring the cold, ignoring the party going on just a few feet away. "I won't." I tug on his shirt to get his attention. "I won't let you down." His eyes pierce right through mine. "I *will* *not*." I emphasize the point.

"I will not either," he repeats back to me.

He kisses me chastely, softly, like he might knock me over if he put any force into it. The way I feel at the moment, I don't doubt it's possible.

I don't want to let go of this moment, but I know I have to. "The quicker we go back inside, the quicker I can start feeling nauseous." I let go of his shirt and move to pull back, but he doesn't let me go.

"One more thing." He looks down once and considers his stance before he looks back up.

I'm not sure my wobbly legs can stand hearing one more thing. "What?"

"Knock knock..."

I grin what must be the world's most lopsided grin. "Who's there?"

His smile fades into his mouth, but doesn't leave his eyes. "Me."


	44. Lemon

"Get a move on Sunshine, your shift started half an hour ago!"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry." He runs behind the counter, tossing his apron over his head and picking up some dirty dishes as he goes. "You wouldn't believe the line at the bank and then they make you show them 6,000 different forms of ID before they even consider letting you open an account. I thought I'd make it in time. I tried calling but the battery in my cell went dead."

Debbie stands with one hand on her hip, the other offering him a rag, disinterested in his excuses. "Wipe down the counters. Then refill the lemon bars. You can make the time up tomorrow and cover the end of Elaine's double shift so she can go home to her son." In Deb's world that math makes some sort of sense.

"No can do, I have plans." He gives her a cheeky smile and looks in my direction for the first time since he came in, all hot and sweaty, out of breath and defiant. And smiling. Just the way I like him.

I get the once over from Deb from one side and a glare of pained indifference from her offspring on the other side. "I'm sure Babylon can wait a few hours for your presence. You don't mind do you your highness?" she demands, more than asks. I shrug my shoulders and serve back some of my own practiced indifference.

"Actually, we're not going to Babylon." I can't believe I let him guilt trip me into this. That's the only reason I'm doing this. Fuck it, I shouldn't even be doing that much. I don't do guilt. It's not a big deal. It's not. I knew I'd be paying for that vacation debacle long after I paid off my Visa bill. It seems that repaying certain debts can be an endless, fruitless enterprise when it comes to restoring someone's dignity. I will be paying through the nose until he's satisfied that he no longer feels totally humiliated. I've already done one movie, one art gallery and two nights without Babylon in the course of a couple of weeks. This is my final concession. No more. Nothing. Absolutely the end of the line. As long as he stops panting... and smiling. I wait for him to trade in his humiliation for my own. "I just have some shopping for a shirt I have to do. Brian doesn't think I can find it around here, so he's gonna drive me to find something."

He carries on adjusting his apron and wiping the counter around us, without a care in the world, saving us both from having to explain. Sometimes, in the back of my mind I realize... I really like this kid.

Debbie must too, because she just snaps her gum, tosses her hands in the air and lets it go at that. Mikey on the other hand...

"Just what we need, another label queen in the making. You're teaching him well."

I could only dare to dream.

"Learning at the knee of the master," Justin pipes in, his rag swiping Mikey's hand, rather than the counter. He pauses and stops wiping for a second looking right at him. "Literally." He grins, satisfied with himself. I'm not getting in the middle of it. I've had enough of that to last me one lifetime.

Before Mikey can respond, Debbie saves us all with her well chosen, articulate words of wisdom. "If the two of you want to have a pissing contest, do it somewhere else. Otherwise keep your cocks in your pants."

"Sorry," they both mumble, humbly. I don't apologize. I'm the only one behaving myself, for once.

"And you," she points her pen right at me like a weapon. What? What did I do now? I haven't said a damn word! "If you turn him into a mini-snot like you, you're gonna have to answer to me. Leave Sunshine alone. He's fine just the way he is." She smoothes the bangs on his head and he beams for her like some angel sent from above. Mikey and I both grimace and roll our eyes simultaneously, sickened from the sugar rush. He will always be the favored, golden child.

If she only knew what he was capable of. She'd know that he was clearly the devil's handmaiden packaged as a fair blonde to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting people who have the misfortune of mistaking him for an innocent.

"He should thank his lucky stars I'm willing to take pity on his helpless fashion sense. Khakis with everything..." I shake my head talking mostly to myself. It pains me, it really does.

"What's wrong with khakis?" Michael asks.

"Thank you! I ask him the same thing all the time." Justin verbally high fives him. Oh, that's just bloody fucking priceless. You couldn't get them to agree that the sky is blue on most days, but that they bond over.

"Go clean your hands and get me a lemon bar and be quick about it." I don't have to justify myself. Anyone with a pair of eyes and some taste already knows I'm right. I look around at the three of them. Clearly none of them qualify.

"I'm the only one who gives the orders around here!" Deb reminds me, very loudly. "Sunshine, go clean your hands and refill the lemon bars." He responds dutifully, like the perfect son that he is, taking off in search of the perfect, fattening topper to this oh so pleasant exchange. "And the both of you stop rolling your eyes at him, or I'm going to slap you both in the head so they get stuck up there."

"He's not even your kid!" Michael squeals a little more sharply than he intended, no doubt. Biology doesn't matter much in this family. "Besides, it's not like he walks on water, but you treat him like he does. He can do no wrong." He sounds dangerously on the verge of a 'you love him more than you love me'.

"He does plenty wrong. I'm sure Mr. Wonderful here can tell you all about that." Her glance automatically finds me and pokes me in the eye with a withering stare. "He just gets cut a little more slack because he's 19 and impressionable. You're grown men and he's already more mature than both of you combined. So what the fuck is your excuse?" she asks both of us. How did I warrant an equal reaming? It was Michael's whine! I feel a 'he started it' on the tip of my tongue, but I suppress it. That would only prove her right.

I plead possession by the devil, I don't know what Michael's excuse is. I'll have to remember how precious and fragile Justin really is when he's worshipping my cock in a few hours. I'm tempted to tell her that just to knock him off his pedestal.

Instead we both say nothing. Our wrists have been thoroughly slapped.

"Well now that we're all one big happy family again, I expect to see all of you Sunday night for dinner at 4. Do you think you could find the time to do me that one little favor?" She lays it on thick. If it were anyone else, I would have been out of here the minute I sat down.

"As a matter of fact, no." I move my fork closer to me and away from her as a precaution. "I have a business function I can't get out of."

"On a Sunday?" Michael asks the question forming on Debbie's lips. He thinks about it for minute, recognition alighting on his face. "Your company picnic. It's that time of year, isn't it?"

"Well then you're excused," she allows.

"I can't make it then either," Michael responds. "What time is it? I'll have to rearrange my plans with Ben."

Justin arrives with newly clean hands, a batch of uncut lemon bars and a very large kitchen knife.

"What the fuck for?" Debbie takes the lemon bars, but not the knife. I look at my fork. It doesn't even compare.

"Because I have to go to this boring picnic to make sure he doesn't fall into a coma," he laughs, surely just remembering all the years that I nearly drank myself right into one at this thing and that's it. Meaning nothing by it at all. No one else laughs with him. I watch Justin's ears perk up, listening but not looking, concentrating on cutting perfectly sized wedges with his very large knife and a slightly shaky hand.

Debbie peruses Justin's stiff, robotic movements, a frown appearing on her face. "I'm sure Brian can handle one year without you, can't you Brian?"

"It's not a big deal, we'll do the dinner next Sunday." Michael answers for me. Debbie stops chewing her gum. When Debbie stops chewing her gum, it's wise to take shelter somewhere far away.

"I'll finish that, honey." She takes the knife from Justin's hand, shielding him from her coming wrath, because he's 19 and impressionable, and still not entirely up to speed. "You go clean up table three." Sometimes she forgets how smart he really is. Sometimes I think we all do.

"Sure," he says with a confident smile. "I don't mind cutting them though. It helps my hand." He waves his fingers as he casually strolls by me on the way to table three, and it cuts my stomach into tiny little pieces. I no longer have an appetite for lemon bars or anything else. It's just another in a long line of reminders about why I don't care how much people tiptoe around him or look at me with that blame in their eyes, at least he's still here to tiptoe around. He can be forever encased in glass for all I care.

She waits until he's out of earshot before leaning across the counter, directly in front of Michael's face. "Sometimes you're a real shit!" She makes good on her promise and slaps him in the head with her order pad. Can't say he didn't deserve that one.

"Whaaat? What did I do now?" He's honestly confused. It's why he's so easily forgiven by everyone. Justin is just following in his well worn footsteps. It's hard to stay mad at someone who doesn't honestly set out to hurt anyone. It's why no one would ever confuse me with someone who deserves to be forgiven for anything.

She sighs an exasperated, upset sigh. "You have to learn to think before you speak." I don't take the shot, it's way too easy. Besides, I'd rather it come from Debbie. If it came from me, then it would just be me interfering. A vow I plan on sticking with for once in my life. I'd be getting it from him about choosing sides and cackles of glee from Justin about which side I chose. Instead, I make no choice. I just let the chips fall wherever they may. "Now listen up, you're not going to this thing. You have plans with Ben, you keep your word. I know I taught you better than that." She turns bluntly towards me, not unexpectedly. "I think you know what you have to do, don't make me spell it out." I smirk, insouciantly.

She always feels better after she's finished running our lives.

"You don't understand. It's not a big deal." Michael scrunches his eyes in that way he always does when he's trying to emphasize a point. "It's just something we do every year. Like a tradition. It has nothing to do with Ben or Justin. Will you tell her that?" he pleads with me.

"What has nothing to do with me?" For once he might actually be as innocent he looks.

"You finished cleaning that table already? Christ, you're quick," Deb recovers well enough for all of us.

"Your mother is right Mikey. Spend the day with Ben. I'll manage without you." She purses her lips in gratitude.

"I don't mind changing my plans, I'm sure Ben won't either." I put my hand up in protest and he doesn't challenge me.

"You are hereby absolved of best friend duties for the day," I hold my hand to my chest solemnly but jokingly and that seems to appease him. He's clearly disappointed that I didn't jump to his defense and explain how not that big of a deal it really is. He's right, it's not a big deal, it's just something we do every year. So it's not a big deal, if he doesn't come. Frankly I don't understand why any of it is a big deal anyway? It's just a boring picnic. You'd think it was the party of the century and there was only one spot on the guest list left.

"I have to get back to the shop." He fishes around his wallet for some money and throws it on the counter. "Have fun if I don't see you before then." He says it more than he means it. He slaps my shoulder and looks towards Justin. I can feel his hand slide off slowly the longer Justin looks in our direction.

"Lemon bar to go?" Justin drips with pleasantness.

Mikey leans over the counter to give his mother a kiss on the cheek, like the good son he is, ignoring Justin. We all watch him leave until Deb comes around to my side of the counter. She does have a living she has to make, that doesn't involve directing our personal traffic. She leans close to my ear, gum firmly stuck under her tongue. "You think you could do the right thing for once?"

"I always do." My voice follows her retreating backside. I look over my shoulder to make sure she's not coming up from behind me with any blunt objects.

"So what doesn't involve me?" He leans on the counter, crossing his arms.

"You're so clever. Except you're not." That innocent act doesn't work on me.

"And you're such a fucking coward. Except... on no, wait... you really are."

Can't say I didn't deserve that one.

"Do you want to stay home? Because that can still be arranged," I threaten.

He takes the tongs from the cake platter and retrieves a plate from under the counter, putting a lemon bar on it, without my asking, or my permission. He shoves it in front of me expecting me to just eat it. We both wait a beat and I take my fork and reluctantly poke a hole in the devil's candy.

"Why didn't you tell them?" he waits until the fork is planted firmly in my mouth.

"Nothing to tell." He buys my innocent act as much as I buy his.

"If that were true, then you would have said something and saved yourself the scene. Now they're both going to think it was Debbie's idea!"

It's official, nothing will ever satisfy him. "You're already going, what more do you want? A banner?"

"Don't you at least want credit for doing the right thing without having to be pushed into it?" It puzzles him that I don't. I kind of think doing the right thing, doing what's expected of you, isn't something that needs its own celebration. If I were someone who did it more regularly, maybe everyone else would stop thinking it was an achievement when I finally did. If I were someone who did it more regularly, we wouldn't have to keep having this conversation, would we? "Unless of course it's not about that," he leads.

I follow. "What is it about then?" Straight into the fires of hell.

He pulls himself up straight, leaning his hands on the counter. "You want them to think it was her idea. You want to hide behind the whole world thinking it was someone else's idea. I get it now." It's not kind, but it's not an accusation either. It's like the curtains have been separated and the light has just begun to dawn on him. "That's fine. I'm the only one who needs to know the truth anyway. You can pretend for everyone else. So what time are we on for tomorrow? Even though I totally don't see what's wrong with just wearing a t-shirt." He leans back down reaching both of his hands out for one of my own, no longer panting, but smiling. That's enough for me.

That's it, no finger pointing, no arguing, no long faces.

I smile back and shove the remainder of the lemon bar in his mouth.

Sometimes, way way waaaaaay in the back of my mind, I realize... I could really love this kid.


	45. Shade

"So, according to Lucille in Accounting, I'm a marked improvement over your last boyfriend," I inform him with mock seriousness. I can't see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I'm sure there's a razor sharp glare piercing little holes in my skin the longer I stand in front of him and block his view from surveying the kingdom he's helped build. He can't even be bothered with the lowly bench. Instead, he sits on top of the small picnic table under the shade as if it was a throne built solely for him.

"Seems your mid-life crisis is treating you well. What with making partner and trading in the brunette for a young blonde. I think that's what she said, isn't it? She was very impressed with young Mr. Taylor." Cynthia manages to stroke my shoulders and stir the pot with only two hands. No wonder he's so impressed by her.

We both dissolve into a fit of giggles at the deadpan expression of disgust on his face. I'm suddenly grateful that he convinced me to get the polo shirt, because the closest thing to him is one plateful of macaroni salad and he wouldn't think twice about me wearing it, if I had on a t-shirt from my closet.

"Remind me to fire her tomorrow morning."

I grab his chin playfully. "Frankly, I think she deserves a bonus. She obviously recognizes your very fine taste. That should be rewarded."

He grabs my hand and smiles to hide his threat. "It will be with a nice severance check, gift wrapped in a pink slip. I'll even sign it from you. How about that?"

"Did I mention what a beautiful couple she thinks we make?"

"He blushed like a schoolboy over that. Ah, young love..." Cynthia sighs. I drop down on the bench between his feet, sitting for the first time in what seems like hours, having been dragged around half the park listening to her give me the lowdown on practically every employee at Vanguard. She's an unbelievable well of information that just keeps churning it out. I have no idea how Brian keeps up with her day in and day out. She's exhausting. "I need to go find some iced tea to pour this Bacardi into. If I leave you two boys alone, do you promise not to do anything fun without me?"

"At this thing? I'm pretty sure that's one promise I can keep," Brian snarks.

"Take that and run because he doesn't make many. Trust me... I know." He pinches the tip of my earlobe hard with his perfect manicure, marking me. "Aaaaahh... shit! That hurt!" I'm sure it will be blood red and sore for the rest of the day. I rub it protectively and feel his fingers lift my hand to make sure he didn't do any real damage. He rubs it with his thumb a couple of times and I feel better already.

"You definitely won't have any trouble entertaining yourselves while I'm gone. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Cynthia trills as she practically skips away.

"That doesn't leave a hell of a lot of room," his voice breaks on a slight laugh.

"Now I know why you like her so much." I crane my head and look at him upside down. Even from this position, he's still beautiful.

He peers down at me. "I tolerate her."

"Riiigghhtt. Same way you tolerate me. Oh well, guess you're stuck with both of us." His eyebrows dance over his shades. I lean my head on the inside of his thigh, feigning exhaustion. "I'm sooo bored."

He hunches over and leans his head closer to mine. "You wanted to come. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Want to get your face painted by a clown?" I ask brightly and cover my ear instinctively.

"You are so fired. Right behind Lucille." He laughs and wrestles with my hand, but I put up a good fight and he backs off.

"I can't be let go from a position I never had. Don't worry, I made sure that lady knew we weren't a couple." He taps his foot up and down a couple of times.

"You don't have to go around explaining yourself, especially to these people." I take my head off his thigh, it occurs to me that it probably wasn't appropriate to put it there in the first place.

"These people thought Michael was your boyfriend all those years. Something tells me... they need things spelled out for them." I bow my head and watch my sneakers dig into the grass underneath them.

"Who gives a shit what they think?" I hear him exhale a long breath, and though I don't feel it, I'm sure his body is tense.

"You do. Or this wouldn't have been such a big deal." I wait for a protest but none comes. "Doesn't it bother you when people assume things about you that aren't true?" My fingers find the tip of my earlobe and rub it mindlessly trying to pool the blood in different directions so it doesn't leave a mark. I watch a couple of little kids fighting over some action figure, mad at myself for ruining what was an otherwise pleasant afternoon.

"Like what? Michael being my boyfriend?" He doesn't even choke on the word. "Are we talking about me or you here?"

I shift my seat a little and my back brushes his calf. I feel it settle between my shoulder blades. My profile is dangerously close to his thigh again, but I keep my distance. "You don't do boyfriends, but it's okay for them to think Michael was one?" This is probably not the time or place to bring it up, but I don't get very many openings.

"As okay as it is for them to think you are." I swear I feel his thigh move closer to my head as if he's squeezing me into a small space, but it could just be the hot August heat getting to my brain after all these hours in the sun. I'm glad for some shade. I'm sure I'm going to look like a lobster tomorrow. I won't have to worry about my ear, it'll match the rest of the crimson stain on my body.

"In that case, I guess it really doesn't matter to you what they think since none of it's true anyway. May as well let them believe whatever they want if you don't care." I try to hide the disappointment in my voice. I suppose it doesn't matter much, because I'm sure it's written all over my face.

He lifts his sunglasses and looks right at me. "The only thing that matters to me is that I know what's true and what's not."

"Fine, then I won't correct anyone else." Now I know for sure his thigh is moving closer to my head because I haven't moved an inch and suddenly my face is resting in it's previous position.

"It'd be a waste of time correcting the truth." His voice is husky and low and his face is close enough to make my heart pound a loud thumping sound. My lips part in a semi-smile for his benefit only and he returns the gesture, tugging on my ear gently.

We seem to both hear the same slight cough at the same time and look in the direction of its origin. He replaces the shades over his eyes and I move off his leg.

"Look who I found, your co-host who's been looking all over for you." Cynthia's mouth sings, but her face twists in disgust as she leads one bald man, in one very expensive watch and loafers with no socks, in our direction. This must be the infamous Gardner Vance.

"I think it's time for you to do a little socializing, don't you?" His accent is like music, hitting every right note. "I think the raffle booth is calling your name."

"I'm sure it can wait." I see both of Brian's hands bunch his jeans at the knee in an effort to keep them busy.

"I'm sure it can't," Vance responds. It might be threatening, it might be nothing. I can't really tell. He gives me a pleasant smile. "We like to keep our employees happy Mr. Kinney." He sips from the styrofoam cup in his hand, his pinkie raised in salute.

"I'll come with you Brian and slay the dragons waiting to breathe fire down your neck." I suddenly picture Cynthia in a Zena costume with a sword and leather strapped sandals up to her knees.

"Fine, c'mon Justin." He nudges my shoulder with his knee.

"You go, I need a break." I move out of the way to let him lift his leg over my head and jump down from the table.

"Gardner? Coming with?" Cynthia asks.

"I need to get my head into the shade for a little while. I don't want any blistering," he laughs heartily. Brian looks warily between Vance and me, unsure if this is a good idea. My chest tightens, suddenly unsure right alongside him.

"If I'm not back in ten minutes come find my body parts so they can identify me."

"Will do. Go, have fun." I chuckle and he gives me one last rueful glance, flashing a look in Vance's direction before he goes.

"Gardner Vance." He offers me his hand for a shake and I oblige. "You must be Justin. The artist, I assume?" He sits down casually crossing his legs so that his pants ride up and I see his bare ankle. "Quite a lovely portrait of that man singing, hanging on Brian's wall. I admire it often."

"Thanks." It's all I can manage after that revelation. I had no idea where that thing had gone and I never asked.

"This must be very boring for you. Maybe next year you can replace that dreadful artist we hired to do caricatures. Assuming you're here next year of course." He leans his back on the picnic table, sloshing his drink around in his cup. His fingers look like little leather talons. Now I know why Brian calls him a snake charmer.

"Maybe. I'm not really into caricatures." I smile politely over my shoulder.

He leans forward and squeezes my shoulder as if we're old friends. I twist my neck and my shoulder follows. "No, of course not. Your tastes are more refined. I wouldn't want to denigrate your talent. Are you an artist by living?"

"Sort of." I don't know if Rage still counts. "Not really. I'm mostly still a student." I squint my eyes even though there's no sun in this section of the park. It's the only one with shade. But I feel a prickling sensation along my spine and it's making me wince.

"Working on your Master's degree?" I suspect if he had an American accent, he wouldn't get away with half of the things he says. Somehow in that mellifluous voice everything seems genuine.

"No actually, my Bachelor's."

"Oh, I see." His voice momentarily drops a register in... surprise? I'm not sure. I feel uncomfortable, and he must read my body language because he smiles, baring all of his teeth, trying to put me at ease. "Please, don't mistake that for judgment. My second ex-wife was significantly younger than I was. She was a dancer." For half a second, he actually seems to be remembering her fondly. "People thought I lost my mind. Maybe I did." He actually seems to genuinely regret whatever happened there, but brushes it off with a chuckle. "She wouldn't be an ex otherwise."

"Maybe it just wasn't meant to be," I say, wistfully.

"Could be so. I just traded up anyway for a better model. So I guess I won in the end." Or maybe he really is just that smarmy. I squirm away an inch. I don't like where this conversation is going. "It's funny Brian's never mentioned the connection between the painting and your..." he fumbles for a word, "relationship?" He intones the word as if to ask for my approval of the label. I'm not about to give him that. Hell, I don't even know for myself if I'd by lying.

"He's a private man." I suddenly appreciate Brian's silence more than I ever thought I would.

"That he is, indeed. Except for all those war stories you hear about him." His voice winks an implied secret between us. "I quite admire his stamina. Keeping up with all those accounts, keeping up with you. It takes real dedication. He's a very dedicated man," he repeats the notion. If he says it enough times maybe he'll convince himself he believes it. "He really earns his reputation. He's a big contributor to our success." The dulcet tones of his accent become aloof and distant. It seems like he's given it a lot of practical consideration and reached that conclusion very, very reluctantly.

"He works hard for what matters to him." The sound of truth stings my ears.

"It's a good lesson to learn, don't you think? That sense of accomplishment. We could all take a page from his book." I actually think he might be sincere about all of this, some slight shade of truth. Maybe he doesn't mean to, but he seems to sort of admire Brian. I feel a sense of pride on his behalf.

"Absolutely. He's always trying to make me believe that about my art." In his own way.

"That's wonderful." He rolls his tongue around the word as if it were dipped in honey. "There's nothing like being the architect of your own destiny. You've got a lot to learn from him."

"I like that, 'architect of your own destiny'." It flows right out of my mouth. My chest relaxes for the first time during this conversation as I try to imagine what I would build if someone told me to create my own destiny. Maybe he's just selling me a concept, the consummate ad-man, but it sounds like something I'd want to buy. There's a reason we're all such suckers for that kind of stuff. I guess we'd like to believe there's a grain of truth, no matter how outrageous the concept. Designing your own destiny doesn't seem that far out of the realm of possibility.

"I look at you and I remember being a starving, directionless student at university. I would have killed to have someone like Brian in my corner to help me along."

"I guess I just got lucky." I grin. I'm sure he doesn't it mean it kindly, but I don't care. I am lucky. If I had to choose my destiny, the one thing I'm certain would be a part of it would be Brian. And my art, definitely my art. What else would it include?

"Mum was on the dole, so it was to up to me to put myself through school. I worked long and hard to get where I am." He looks me up and down, sizing up everything about me. "Nothing is a sure thing except for the investment you make in yourself. Nobody can take that from you. Can't really depend on anyone else." I meet him eye for eye and I think I know now why Brian is so put out by him and why he works so hard to stay on top of his game. He's unnerving. Like Brian, only scary. "Brian knows that, that's why he's so successful. Why I am and I'm sure you will be as well. Make sure you invest wisely."

His words rain all over me, crawling under the skin at the nape of my neck and rattling my brain. "I will." I swallow hard, intimidated by the thought that if someone asked me right this very minute how I intended to do that, I haven't got a clue how to even begin to answer them. "Obviously Brian is good enough, if you invested in him and made him partner."

"I know an equal when I see one..." I feel as big as one of the microscopic ants crawling around the blades of grass at my feet.

"I've had enough!" I've never been more grateful to hear the shrill sound of Brian's disgusted complaining.

"Already? Justin and I were just getting to know one another."

"Well now you can go get to know the cafeteria staff." Brian interjects, standing between our bodies.

Vance leaves his cup on the table, standing and adjusting the waist of his pants, his bald head shining even in the shade. "Enjoy yourselves. It's a beautiful day. Eat, drink and be merry."

"We'll see how merry you are when you have to foot the bills for this little affair," Brian reminds him.

"Justin, it was a pleasure." He pointedly ignores Brian, offering me another cordial handshake instead. I'm inclined to dismiss it, but I'm sure my mother would have my head if I were ever that rude.

Brian climbs back on his perch on top of the picnic table. I wouldn't want to sit in the oil slicked spot on the bench that Vance just occupied either. He plants his feet there instead. "Did he bite?"

I lean my elbows back on the table, watching Vance grow smaller and smaller, the further away he walks. "He was uh... interesting. Gave me all sorts of advice on how to be a manly man" I do my best Austrian musclehead impression.

"Kinky," he laughs. "Did it involve manacles?"

That is so not a scene I ever need to imagine Vance being involved in. "He actually made a lot of sense." I mean, he did. He might be a little creepy, but he wasn't wrong. I should be the architect of my own destiny. I should be making things happen, not waiting for them to happen to me.

"There's a first for everything. Don't let him rattle you," he advises. "I know how he can get."

"Does he do that to you?" There have been so few times I've ever actually see him shaken by anything that it's hard for me to remember that he's just as human as the rest of us sometimes. I don't think he'd want me to anyway.

"He's all talk," he bites down on his fingernail. I don't press him for details because if there's one thing Brian isn't, it's all talk. Maybe that's not such a bad thing sometimes. "So what advice did he give you about being a man?" He snorts a quiet laugh.

"He told me I should be the 'architect of my own destiny'."

"Nice slogan. Bet you could sell a ton of self-help books with that one," he mocks. "Or an investment bank."

I study his face, so full of cynicism and doubt. "Don't you believe it, though? You always tell me the only responsibility you should have is to yourself. That you're the only one you have to rely on." My brain tosses figures around, calculating the price of building the foundation for my investment.

"Yeah. And aren't you always telling me that's bullshit?" he softens. I bounce out of my seat, too frenzied with hope to sit still any longer.

"Maybe it's not all shit. There's something to be said for being your own man."

"Of course," his brow furrows in a deep valley at the bridge of his nose. "But you know you can always ask for help."

"I know... but... maybe I should start repaying people for their help."

"You can start by buying me that new suit," he smirks. I move closer to him, my hands flopping around excitedly in the pockets of my khakis.

"I have something better in mind. Something you're gonna be proud of," I tease.

"Are you planning on telling me, or do I have to guess?" He lifts my chin with his finger.

"This is one of those things I have to do myself. I need to invest in me."

"You seem awfully sure of yourself." I hold both of his knees, and my smile alone could probably blind him in this shade.

"Let's just say I've finally decided to stop relying on the kindness of strangers."

His face grows quizzical, and if we were anywhere else I'd chance a kiss to silence his questions, but we both know I can't do that here. So he stays quiet for once and just lets it go. Let's me go. To design my own future.

The only way to start is to cement your past, put it in its proper corner and hopefully build something new, something better, from there. I know where I'm going to start, with my father. It's time for us to start anew. He helped me get back on my feet and now it's time for me to repay him, free and clear, with all my cards on the table. He took the first step. I owe him that much. I owe myself more.

It's time for me to start walking out of the shade and into the sun on my own.


	46. Incandescent

"I hate parties."

"Fifteen more minutes..." I snake my arm around his stomach and kiss the underside of his jaw. We stumble, still attached, into the warm kitchen. I'm glad for the respite. Normally I can block the cold out on my own, but not when I'm responsible for someone else's shivering. "Don't let anyone corner you, keep your shoulders slumped and look at the ground as much as possible."

"I know how to act sick." He bows his head to the side to face me with forlorn eyes and a frown. If I didn't know better, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

"Could you at least wait until we've served the cake?" Shit! Lindsay appears in the doorway trying to hide the gleam in her eye with the deliberate snit in her stance. "We've gone to a lot of trouble for him."

"It was his idea," I cast a pall on his innocent facade. So it was only *sort of* his idea. I just picked up on the suggestion to leave and ran with it. He creates the concepts, I come up with the sell. When we reverse positions it just causes more trouble than it's worth.

"I'm sure it was." She doesn't believe me, she doesn't even consider it. Instead she removes my arm from his waist and tries to draw him nearer her hip. "Besides, we haven't even done gifts." She smiles sweetly at me and I concede by shoving my hands in my pockets and giving him over to her. As if I could give him over to anyone he doesn't want to follow.

"Cake and a couple of gifts and then we really do have to go. I really don't feel well. I just didn't want to mention it because I didn't want him to start breathing down my neck again." He sighs heavily, and hugs himself with his arms, letting a slight shiver run the course of his body. I knew he wasn't up for this. Fuck the cake and the gifts. I'm tempted to grab him and leave now without explanation.

"You really don't feel well, huh?" Lindsay pats her instinctively maternal hands on his forehead to check for fever. "I'm sorry you have to spend your 21st so under the weather. I wish you could enjoy this more. Just a few more minutes." She leans over him conspiratorially and raises an unforgiving eyebrow at me for allowing him out.

"Don't give me that look. I didn't even want anything to do with this to begin with," I respond. Justin blinks his eyes twice in rapid succession and I know there's no taking that back.

"I don't want to see either of you in here by the time I get back. Get out there and mingle with the masses that we went to all this trouble to have over. This is *your* party. Have a little fun, even if you are miserable," she commands with a perfect smile belying the seriousness of her order.

Have fun, even with a two ton anchor of misery wrapped around you.

She squeezes his waist before strolling out of the kitchen, distracted by the fact that the carefully laid plans for her perfect party somehow didn't include taking into account the person being celebrated.

"If you didn't feel well, you should have told me. We wouldn't have come," I offer.

"I feel fine. I was just saying that so she wouldn't feel bad that I'm walking out on her party. Told you I know how to act sick," he smirks and pokes me in the chest. "You didn't have to come at all. I know you'd rather be anywhere but here. So thanks... for that."

His sight line slopes towards the linoleum beneath our feet. My breath clings to the interior walls of my lungs and fills it with all the words I should be saying. I feel my chest deflate and pockets of air straggle aimlessly between my sealed lips. Maybe next time.

I watch him leave and I resolve to stay put, to give him a moment to forget I exist and just be free of me and all the ways I disappoint him over and over again. He deserves that much. He deserves so much more than me.

"Are you coming?" He pierces my shallow breathing with one nod of his head and I swear I hear a wheezing sound of defeat whistle in my ear. I surrender. It's all over. Like a prisoner being led to the gallows, my feet respond unconsciously and follow to my appointed execution. So it begins...

I didn't know that when I met him, I would wind up here. If I did, I would have sent him in the other direction. I could have then, with little effort. I just didn't care enough to make sure I held firm back then. It's true, as much as everyone would like to re-write history. I didn't get hit by a mack-truck and lose all sense, that's not how it happened. I know all that romantic bullshit of love conquering all should make hindsight blurry and distorted. Make all that came before this moment not matter, so long as we got here. Only it does matter. If someone asked me, if I knew we'd make it this far, would I do it all over again, I would tell them no. Not because I'm a selfish asshole who doesn't give a shit, not because I'd want it to be that way, but because that's what would have been best for him and it still would be. I'm not the best thing that will ever happen to him. I'm not even in the top ten. If I wasn't such a selfish asshole that would be enough to let him go.

"Don't you both look nice?" Jennifer hugs his shoulders daintily, afraid she might break him, and brushes some imaginary lint off the front of his sweater, smoothing it down as she breaks the hug.

"Brian picked the sweater out."

"He has good taste." She still does that sometimes, talks about me like I'm not even there. That's the part of her that will never want me in his life, and who can blame her? Luckily for me and unfortunately for him, the better part of her accepts that what she wants is of little consequence to Justin. "I can't believe you're 21 years old. Seems like yesterday that I was bringing you home," her eyes well up.

"Mom, please, no stories." He strokes her arm tenderly as she regains her composure.

"Oh no, no, please feel free to share any and all embarrassing stories. I need all the blackmail I can get," I break the ice forming around the frosty moment of awkwardness between the three of us.

"I was a perfect child," he answers cheekily.

"A perfect holy terror." Score one for mom. "I'll forgive you that though, because you've grown into a beautiful young man." He has.

"No thanks to me," I bite my lip, once again amazed at my ability to find my voice at exactly the wrong moment. Usually this is when Justin will say something to cover up for me, turn the attention away from my stupidity. I squeeze my eyes tightly for a long second. "I'm just... I'm gonna leave the two of you alone." The way I should have to start with.

The faintest brush of Jennifer's fingertips on my hand stops me cold. "You stay, and be with him. That's what makes him happy. And that's what I want for him, especially tonight." We both look to her in unison. Two dumbstruck idiots, felled by nothing more than a whisk of approval.

"Sunshine, get your ass over here for this cake!" There's no mistaking Debbie, even in a crowd of thousands. "Someone shut the lights off."

"I'm coming!" He yells across the room to Debbie waving her arm frantically, as if he could miss her. "I better go," he looks between us and we clear a path for him to lead the way for both of us.

Halfway there we're plunged into darkness. "Thank you for taking care of my son." Her hand squeezes mine. I see nothing but a blur of bodies as my eyes adjust to the shadows.

The incandescent glow of the birthday candles on top of his cake makes its way out of the kitchen. Lindsay holds one end while Melanie holds the other and leads them both to the cleared table surrounded by all the people that count. I stand a bit to the side of him, Jennifer lost to me in the maze of people. I watch his profile as he sees the cake for the first time. His smile outshines all 22 candles and half of the streetlights lining the block. It really is a beautiful cake. Of course it is, it had a beautiful model. The chorus of "Happy Birthday" swims in my ear and I watch him blow the candles out with one long breath. Darkness resumes and clapping sounds throughout the room, but I don't participate, because my hand is preoccupied by his fingers slipping through mine.

"Well, someone turn the fucking lights back on so we can cut this thing!" Nope, not even in the dark could someone mistake Debbie for anyone else. The lights flicker overhead and we all peer over his shoulder to get a look at our masterpiece. "Sunshine, look at that. It looks just like you," Debbie marvels. We all look at the rendering of his face made of icing and food coloring staring back at us from the cake.

"I don't know whether to be scared or touched." He laughs. "Where did you guys come up with this?"

"Emmett did all the work." I give the Queen his due. "Vic and I just helped."

"Well we wouldn't have any cake if you didn't come up with that picture of him," Emmett starts removing the candles.

"Where did this picture come from? I've never seen it before." I can almost see his brain flipping through the handful of pictures people have snapped of us over the years and coming up empty-handed.

"Oh, it's just something I ran across in his office," Cynthia offers her glass to the air, across the table, in a toast to both of us.

"You keep a picture of him in the office?" Michael grins mercilessly. "I guess it really must be love." He's lucky he's too far away for me reach out and mash his face into the cake.

"It's almost too nice to cut." Jennifer to the rescue.

"Since it's the only piece of you that the rest of us are ever going to get, move out of the way and let me do the honors." Just like Ted, to be point blank and matter of fact about things.

"Everyone get out of the way and let the chef do his thing, would you please?" Vic shoos all of us out of his domain and takes to cutting up Justin's chin as painlessly as possible.

"I'll take a piece of the mouth." I point at the cake in mock seriousness.

"You get the mouth every night, you're getting a corner and nothing else," Vic wields his cake knife and serves Justin the first piece. We all chuckle.

"I can't Vic, I'm sorry. We're going to have to save me a piece. My stomach is really bothering me." He loosens his shoulders so that they droop several inches.

"You're rejecting food? You really must be out of it." Deb fixes plates of the cake as Vic cuts.

"You have no idea." He settles himself, leaning against the length of my body but I keep a firm grip on his hand behind his back and squeeze hard to let him know not to push the act too far. It has to be obvious enough for them to buy it, but subtle enough for them to not question it.

"Since you're just *so* sick," Melanie chirps suspiciously, "why don't you open a couple of gifts and call it a night? Brian has something he wants to give you and our gift doesn't make sense without it."

That perks him right up! He nearly bounces off of my body, but I hold him in place by the hand.

"He's been talking about this all day! What is it?"

I bite my fingernail and stare wearily at Melanie's retreating backside. Of all people, I can't believe she's the only one I trusted with this, and from the looks of an oblivious Lindsay, she didn't share it with her.

She comes back bearing the round tube and a large square frame, and I can feel the sweat forming on Justin's palm. He's trying so hard to not anticipate this, to be cool about it, to prepare himself for the inevitable disappointment. Hard enough that I panic at the last second that he's going to get the wrong idea and this is all going to blow up right in my face.

"Maybe we should do all the gifts at home."

"Brian don't be silly, he has to open at least one of them. It's tradition. Cake and then gifts," Lindsay insists. "He doesn't have to do all of them." Lindsay must have learned that talking about him like he's not even there trick from Jennifer.

"Besides, we're all dying of curiosity," Michael goads her on, judging Emmett's near panting at his side and Ted's questioning face, he's not lying.

"I say we let Justin decide," Jennifer reasons. "Justin?"

I didn't know that when I met him, we would wind up here. If I did, I would have run screaming in the other direction.

"I want to open it." I cringe, feeling the tsunami of a disaster that's about to flood this room.

"His is the tube," Melanie directs him. I can see the regret over participating in this all over her face and I know she's having the same fleeting moment of terror at her decision that I am.

He lets go of my hand and grabs the tube, removing the lid and shaking out the rolled up poster paper, tied in a red ribbon. He happily picks at the knot of the ribbon and unravels the poster, revealing a photo of Michelangelo's David.

"Happy birthday?" It's more a question than a sentiment by the time it leaves my mouth. "Red bow... fantasy man... get it?"

No one says a word.

"It's uh..." he tries to find an appropriate description. 'Disappointing', go ahead and say it Justin. This idea seemed so much better in the planning stages than it does in the actual execution. "I like it." He considers it and genuinely seems to appreciate it. "I really do. It was a good cover for the car trick. I knew that was my gift." He laughs and admires the poster some more. I exchange a look with Melanie over his head. Suddenly I feel like an evil genius, and that gives me confidence to actually pull this off.

"I know how much you want to see it in person, so I figured I'd bring it to you."

Melanie fakes a polite smile and runs with the ball. "That's why we bought you a frame. Now you can put it up and dream of naked works of art all day."

Myself included.

"Brian's going to be nice enough to let you hang it wherever you want when you get home, right Brian?" Lindsay prompts, unknowingly.

"Wherever you want."

"That's what the big fuss was about?" Debbie speaks the disappointment everyone else feels. Everyone but Justin, and he's the only one that matters.

"It was thoughtful. Very touching." Emmett tries to save face, very, very poorly.

"It's a ten dollar poster from the mall. Big deal," Ted argues.

"Well I, for one, like it very much. At least he was paying attention to what Justin wanted." Jennifer defends me. She's just happy that my gift didn't vibrate.

"Let's at least see the frame, it's gotta be better than that," Debbie blurts.

"No...." Melanie and I chime in at once.

"It'll get scratched... in the car... on the way home." It's a good thing she's a lawyer and can lie on her feet.

"I'll just open it when I get home," Justin offers both of us a lifeline unsure of what he's rescuing us from. "I love it. Thank you." He says it with such bare honesty, I want to shuck the plan altogether and rip the wrapping paper off the frame myself. He distracts me with a kiss. "I think we should really go. Before I get everybody else sick."

"Big celebration to get to at home I presume?" Ted gnaws his way through Justin's nose on his fork as Jennifer tries not to react. She fails.

"Huuugggeee..." Justin measures the air by casually separating his hands to a variety of disgusted and semi-excited stares. The party surrounding the cake table begins to disburse, leaving me standing with the amused, besotted newly young man that is my total undoing.

"You just ruined the entire act."

"Maybe. But I saved your ass." He taps my chest with the cardboard tube.

"Yeah... you did."

I didn't know that when I met him, we could wind up where we're at. If I did, I might have sent him in the other direction and it would have been my loss. I'm still pretty sure that I'm not the best thing that will ever happen to him, but maybe... he might be the best thing that ever happened to me.


	47. Flesh

The pangs start in my stomach. If I rock forward and hold steady for a long moment, they seem to subside. I lean back and squeeze my eyes tightly. A symphony of clatter, chatter and buzzing sounds seem to orchestrate themselves in perfect harmony in my ears. I can hear my heart beat there. I feel the pulse of the vein in my forehead twitch unmercifully in absolute synchrony. My palm presses its indentation into the flesh of my forehead. I just want it to stop. I rock forward again and lean all my weight on ten slim toes. The noise keeps getting louder. I can feel a trickle of sweat forming above my lip. It's so hot in here.

'This is not for real.'

That's what I keep telling myself. I tell myself so many lies, so many half-truths, so many illogical explanations and stories to try and explain the inexplicable. I make so many fucking excuses and find so many ways to forgive the unforgivable. I do all of it so that I don't have to face reality. None of this has been real. I've imagined all of it, the good and the bad. If I didn't feel my flesh sting when I pinch myself, I'd be sure I was imagining how much it all hurts.

Everything just hurts.

There's not an inch of my body that doesn't feel wrong and unreal. My bones no longer fit under the patchwork of my skin and I can feel them clenching against my flesh begging to be released. It's an unnatural sting. So unnatural it can't possibly be real.

Because this is not for real. This... is not happening.

If I tell myself that enough times, maybe it'll all go away.

My lungs fill with this rancid air that hasn't changed once in the two hours I've been sitting here. I'm somehow sure this is what a rotting dead corpse must smell like, hot, oppressive air that weighs on your lungs. It's so still. He's right, I never would have survived the summer with just a fan to swirl this musty heat around and around in circles. I was just fooling myself. Because that's what I do. I fool myself.

He's not usually wrong. It's a pound of my flesh, never his own, for every time he has been. As of this moment there's nothing left of me to barter away. He was so very, very wrong this time.

"Are you trying to recreate the baths? It stinks in here!" The door slams in rhythm with the rattle of the clutter trapped in my brain.

Flesh and bone, flesh and bone, that's all we are is flesh and bone. There will be no floating out of my skin and out of this room, because that's all that's left of me now is flesh and bone. I don't feel a thing. I'm numb.

"No wonder it's so hot in here. Why do you have the air conditioner unplugged?"

He must have brought a draft with him when he walked in, because every nerve jangles on a jagged edge and causes a staccato vibration all along my skin.

"Justin?... Justin? What's wrong with you?"

You can't see me, couldn't see me then, can't see me now. You never have.

"Leave it alone." My mouth is parched. The words form on my lips with a pained effort. It hurts. All over.

"Is something wrong with it? Does it need to be repaired?"

"I said leave it alone." I don't move. If I move, I might break.

"You're the one who called me over, remember? So, what's with the attitude?"

You did this.

"I don't want to love you anymore." It's very simple. He can just leave and I'll open the window and let some air in. When I wake up tomorrow, it'll all be over.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

I count my toes one at a time and ignore the Puma's that nearly graze the tips of the big toes. The longer I don't look up, the closer they seem to get. "You know how there are things that you can't or won't do for me? Well, it's sort of like that. I decided that I just don't want to do it anymore. So, thank you for the air conditioner, but you can go now. You can take it with you."

"What did you take?" He crouches down to meet me at eye level and inspect my pupils, but I don't let him, because I can't look. Not yet.

"Nothing."

"I can't help you if you lie to me." The pads of his fingertips sear the flesh on my chin and try to angle my face towards him. It burns. My eyes water from the intense inflamed feeling his touch creates and the sound of his voice carrying through the army of shrillness that defends my brain from just breaking down entirely. A chorus of "liar, liar, liar, liar" sounds throughout my body. "Could someone have slipped you something? Where were you before? You have to help me out here."

I lift my chin from his hand and look him directly in the eye. "I went to see my father."

His face floods with relief and almost immediately tenses again. "What did he do to you?"

"We just talked. Actually, it was more like I talked and he... didn't. He mostly looked confused." Or disgusted, maybe it was disgusted and confused. Come to think of it, he probably looked kind of how I feel right now.

"Obviously he must have gotten to you. You're practically jumping out of your skin. What did he say?"

"Believe it or not," I think I might be smiling, but maybe that's my other self, the real self, because this is still not really real, "he's the only one who had the guts to tell me the truth." It's kind of funny when you think about it. That he would wind up being the only honest one, out of all of us. "Even my mother tried to deny it at first. I'm sure you will too, but don't bother. Just go."

He pulls his head back a few inches and fixates on a spot right below my eyes. Fuck it, fuck him, he's not allowed in anymore.

My knees crack as I pull myself up and off the couch and away from him.

"I don't have the box, but the warranty is on the counter. I'd really appreciate it if you could take it tonight. I have packing I have to do and it'll just get in the way. I have something else for you too." I look around aimlessly. I have no idea where I put the envelope. I know I made it home... that's a laugh... with it still stuck to my sweaty hand. I almost wore a hole right through it from holding onto it so tightly.

"I'm not..."

I spin around instinctively and cut him off. I can't hear this. I have enough noise in my head. "You're not what? Not taking it? Yes... yes, you are. Not sorry? What the fuck else is new? Not going to explain? Don't worry, I don't expect an explanation."

The wood panels of the floor scorch the fleshy bottoms of my feet. The longer I stand still, the more it hurts. The more it hurts me, the wider his eyes seem to get.

"You need to calm down." His cloth covered feet cross the distance between us. Nothing ever touches him.

My head bobs back and forth. I can't control my neck long enough to stop it. "You need to stop telling me what the fuck I'm supposed to feel. I'm not you." He reaches a hand out to me and I pull back an inch so that he can't touch me any longer.

"No, you're not. So how is that you know what I was about to say?"

"You might think you're original but you're really not. You're so predictable. I can't believe I didn't figure this out before, it's so obvious when I think about it now. It's right up your alley. You have all the answers. The rest of us just fall in line behind you." Not only do I deceive myself, but I let him do it too and that makes it even worse.

"That's not what happened." The arid heat of the room must be getting to him, because his voice is a hoarse whisper.

"You're absolutely right, my mistake. I'm the only one who's supposed to fall in line. No one else has to, you don't expect them to." The walls seem to warp from the heat and swirl around the room. It's making me dizzy. Maybe I should walk it off. "I worked it all out, and it actually makes a lot of sense. So it's okay. It is. It was my fault."

"Please go on, I'm dying to hear just how it is that you managed to 'work it all out' all by yourself." Liar, liar, liar, liar. He seems to shadow my movements.

"There's no room for me. I keep trying to squeeze myself into some place that you tell me over and over is off limits. I should have listened. All the positions have been filled. So the only place that's left for me is to forever be behind everyone else, especially you." I busy myself by pulling the drawers open and searching the counter.

"That's what you think I do?" It comes out in a mumbled half sigh. I refuse to recognize hurt that's not my own at the moment. It's all false.

"It's what I know you do." I dump the contents of the drawer all over the counter, no envelope. I don't know what the hell I did with it. "I'll always come last and that's okay. That's how it should be. Everybody earned their rank over me. I guess I just forgot my place." I look up and find him staring at my frenzied hands making even more of a mess. "I was stupid enough to expect you to treat me the way you'd treat them. You were just being you. I can't blame you for that." My other self, the real self that actually exists in reality and not this surreal moment, is probably wrapped tightly in a cocoon of ignorant bliss. It's so much easier there.

"Was I supposed to come consult you? Maybe I should have knocked on Ethan's door and asked for your opinion. Or better yet stopped by your mother's house and asked if it was okay with you, if I lent you a hand, even though you just walked out on me? Would that have made you feel important?" Yes.

"Like it would have mattered. You just know me so much better than I know myself. Don't you ever get tired of having to think for two people?" I shove the emptied drawer back into the counter frame. I hear a loud splinter as something cracks. I don't care.

"I won't apologize for giving you what you wanted," he threatens. "Because if you stand there and try to tell me that you didn't want to believe that your asshole of a father gave a shit about you, then you're just as much of a liar as you think I am."

I stop moving. He stops moving. Everything just stops moving. "Why do you think it hurts so much right now?" His posture slouches slightly. "Do you know how fucking humiliating it is to see someone you love look at you like you're a joke to them or like they regret ever knowing you?"

"Yeah. I do."

I feel a wallop straight to my gut. I want to sit back down, because I don't think I can stand much longer.

"Why would you do this? Was it Ethan? Is this payback?" I can feel my voice on the verge of blubbering. I will not give him the satisfaction. "Maybe I just ruined the plan when I found out before I was supposed to. I was supposed to really believe you loved me and then you would make sure I knew you didn't as painfully as you possibly could."

"Do you know how insane that sounds? I won't even dignify that with an answer."

"Of course you won't, because then you'd have to explain. You don't do that either. You don't apologize. You don't explain and you know what else you don't do? You definitely don't love me." It's all very clear to me now, how little I mattered. All those ways that I made myself believe I knew the real him, the one cloaked in mystery that no one else understood. The one that loved me back. What an absolute joke that was. There was never any mystery, there was just me being blind.

"Now who's assuming they know someone better than they know themselves?"

"You don't treat somebody that you're supposed to love the way that you treat me. Like I'm not even here." I feel one stray tear trickle out of my eye. I rub my cheek raw until it's gone. That's all I'll ever allow him to see again. That's more than I should have ever shown him to begin with.

"This is the part where I'm supposed to fall down on my knees and beg for forgiveness. 'I'm so sorry Justin. I love you so much. How can you ever forgive me for trying to do what was best for you.'" He mocks me. He fucking mocks me! Every word brands my flesh, leaving a permanent mark. I don't see the regret the minute it leaves his mouth. I refuse to see anything at the moment.

"That's great, make a joke out of it. Do you feel better now that you've put me in my place?"

"I didn't mean..."

"Anything by it. I know. Totally predictable, remember?"

"What is it you want me to say? Because I have the distinct feeling nothing I have to say matches the script you want to hear."

"There's nothing left to say." This is where everything falls apart. "I won't love you anymore and you can go on not loving me. No one loses."

It seems appropriate that it would all come undone in this place. I look around at a snapshot of a moment in my life that I'll look back on and vaguely remember one day. It won't be important, it'll be a passing phase that was never really mine to begin with.

"That's not true." He's quiet, quiet is good. It's better than the disturbance clouding my thinking.

"It is. There's nothing left. I know that you know how to love someone. I've seen you with Gus and Lindsay, and..." I can't bring myself to say it. I just can't. "Just not with me." I feel a reflexive gagging sensation at the back of my throat. This is the piece that's been missing all along. It's not that he's incapable of loving someone, he's just incapable of loving me. Worse yet, he's incapable of letting me love him. He's right, he never lied about that.

"I can trust them to not walk out when everything doesn't go their way. Trust them to live by the rules that they agreed to." I feel weightless and free. I will not be touched.

"The rules you set up for them. You're satisfied just letting them hold on for something they're never going to get from you. They're more than happy to oblige."

"What is it they're not going to get from me? Why do you think I make it so fucking hard for you?" I dig my hand into my pocket and feel the edges of the envelope. It was there all along. "Look at me."

Liar, liar, liar, liar. I'm such a liar. This is really real and it's really happening and there is no other me. There's just this coward that doesn't want to hear anything but 'I'm so sorry Justin. I love you so much. How can you ever forgive me for trying to do what was best for you.' I want him to hurt even more than I am.

"I don't want just a piece of you. I don't care how important it is. That's not enough. I'm not going to sit back and wait for you to maybe decide that you feel like having me around for a little while."

"I can't give you what you want."

"Yes, you can! But you won't. You'll never let me have what I want. Not because you say you won't. That's not it. It's because you will never look at me and see a man who's worth your respect. I'll always be that kid who thought he was in love with you." I feel puddles forming in my tears ducts. I don't care. "Actions speak louder than words, right? Everything you've done, every time you've decided you know what I need more than I do. Every time you won't let me near you because you know better than I do what's best for me. I was listening. You know what I heard? You don't matter. 'You can't have me. You're too young for me.' Message received."

"And every time I let you stay? Every time I broke some fucking rule that I can't even remember ever living by anymore? Every time I forgave you? Every time I tried to do better by you than having you get stuck with whatever the hell is left in me? Did you go deaf?" I retrieve the soggy envelope from my pocket and throw it on the counter between us.

I hear an echo of laughter in my head. It's not a sound I can identify. It's two voices laughing. It sounds like it's in some kind of chamber, the sound bounces off the walls of my brain. It sounds like nothing I've ever heard, but I'm sure I know where it comes from. That box of memories I won't look at. That sealed off place my brain won't let me see. I hear beeping noises. The army reconvenes and stands guard, filling my head with jumbled up words and noise to prevent and distort the sound of any clear voices ringing in my mind. It's only safe to hear what I want to hear.

"I don't want you to love me anymore. Because it just hurts too much when you do."

"Since when have I ever listened to you?" he half smiles.

"Never." I hand him the gross sweat stained envelope. "Take this. I had to take some out because I need to move. I can't afford this place on my own. But I'll pay you back every cent."

"I don't want your money. I don't need it." He tries to stick it back in my palm, but I don't budge.

"You don't need anything from me."

"Don't be stupid. You can use this more than I can." He's left just holding onto it as I arrange all the junk on the counter into neat little piles of useless crap.

"I really have to start packing this stuff up. Please take that air conditioner with you, or it's just going to wind up in the trash. That would be a waste."

"Where are you going to go?" I see concern where I want to see indifference. I blink it away.

"I'll stay with Daphne until I can figure something out."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't live on the floor of some dorm room. You can go home..."

"I don't have a home," I interrupt him. "You saw to that. I don't have anything."

"You have me." He rubs his thumb and index finger until he nearly rubs the fingerprint right off his own flesh. Maybe he can become someone else altogether, if he does that. Someone who doesn't exist right now.

"I don't want you."

"God, will you stop saying that!?" He covers his ears with the price of the pounds of my flesh in his hands, all $1,100 worth of it.

"Would you rather I lie to you?"

"I'd rather you stop lying to yourself. Give yourself a little perspective before you start making all these crazy decisions, will you please?"

"I can't do that with you... being here." I can feel my stomach curl into a rocking position, back and forth, back and forth. I need to sit, no I need to lay down, because the room is spinning again. I stumble towards my bed and slide onto the hot cotton sheets.

"I'm not leaving you like this. Let me sleep on the couch. I'll be gone before you wake up."

"You don't get a say." I stare at the cracks in the ceiling. Maybe if I close my eyes they'll stop looking like they're splintering open right in front of me. Yes, I'll just close my eyes.

I hear the familiar whirring sound of the air conditioner that hums me to sleep night after night. I feel a faint breeze of cold air greet my flesh. I give up. I give over. I give in to my exhaustion. It's cool here.


	48. Pearl

"Justin, how many ways can I thank you? You're an absolute lifesaver."

"All I did was babysit," I shrug off the compliment. It wasn't that big of a deal.

"Dropping everything and running over here to save our asses was more like it," Mel showers me with praise. As if I'd just saved a whimpering puppy from a burning building because of my supersonic hearing and flying cape.

"Your babysitter's mother was rushed to the emergency room. It's not like you can plan for those things," I sort of laugh. It sounds strange coming from my mouth. I feel like I've never laughed in my life. I certainly haven't laughed once in the last week. "Gus almost wore me out. Thank God, he finally fell asleep."

"The older he gets, the more energy he seems to have. I can't believe he'll be two in a couple of days."

"Seems like it was just yesterday that I was naming him." My eyes slink all over the room and my throat swallows down the memory that threatens to invade my private pity party. "Now he's the one naming me. Did you know he's started calling me Judd totally out of the blue?"

She rubs the soles of her feet as she eases her shoes off. "I don't think he can pronounce 'Justin'. He gets frustrated and gives up. So he made up his own name for you. I think it's cute," she smiles with tired eyes. She works too hard. "Besides, he's just returning the favor."

"You still hate the name," I grin.

"I still hate the name," she nods. I let myself laugh, because she's laughing and it would be rude if I didn't. I tell myself over and over again that I don't really mean to laugh. I mean to sulk and be miserable and revel in my joyless existence. There is no joy in my world. "I'm sorry I dragged you over here. I wouldn't have, if it weren't really an emergency but Lindsay had a classroom full of parents and my jury was taking their sweet ass time."

"It's alright. I needed to get out of that apartment for a little while anyway." I wince. I can't think about that place and not physically react. It's impossible.

"How are you doing, with all that?"

"I'm wonderful. Can't you tell?" I puff my chest out with a wide yawn and stretch my arms behind my head for a spell. I'm still unbearably tired, even though I've been doing nothing but going to work and sleeping. It takes a lot out of you to keep up a constant state of misery. I don't have the energy to do much else. I'm saving it up for the big move tomorrow and the start of classes two days after that. My concentration is totally devoted to trying to figure out a new life plan. One that preferably will include a place to really call my own and not one that involves bumming a floor and a pillow off of someone. School might have to be put on hold in order to do that. I don't know, I can't seem to think that far ahead.

I can't seem to think of anything but wallowing. I like wallowing. It's comforting. It doesn't expect anything from me and I can feed it pretty easily. I just open up the wallow box and dump it all in there. It never gets full. People should wallow more often.

"Never let it be said that Brian doesn't do everything spectacularly, including being a royal fuck-up," she announces, bitterly, more for her sake than my own. Nothing stays private in this family. Ever.

I lean my head against the back of the couch "He didn't do it on purpose." Shit! I'm like a wind- up doll. Twist my knob and listen to me respond on command, without thinking. I never think. I just react.

"He's got you trained pretty well. Does he give you a treat every time you master a new trick?" The temperature in the room drops us into a near arctic freeze and the cold front threatening to form icicles on my eyelashes and seal them shut forever snaps my eyes to immediate attention.

"I didn't realize you thought so little of me." This is exactly why we would have never worked out, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, even though I don't want to. Because I want to be miserable, irrational and unforgiving. How could he take me seriously if no one else does?

"It's not you I think so little of. It's him. You deserve better. Everyone knows that. Whether you'll really let yourself get it is another matter altogether," she sighs, heavily. I feel a lecture coming on about what a piece of shit Brian is, and I'm tempted to just leave before I find myself in the one awkward position I really don't want to be in. Defending Brian.

I don't move.

"I know you're just looking out for me, but I don't think you really know what this is all about. It's complicated."

"You're right, I don't know what it's really about. I can only guess. The question is, do you?"

I feel my chest whistle out a tinny slight sound through the back of my throat. My breath gets caught back there for just a second and hiccups. I don't know how to answer that.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can't believe I'm about to fucking defend Brian fucking Kinney and that the world will stop spinning on its axis the minute I'm finished." She rushes the words out so quickly I'm not sure I've heard her correctly. I'm not sure she's sure she said them out loud. "I'm just the only one who's honest enough and not infatuated enough to see what's really going on here. And what do I see? Once again he somehow manages to find the one way that'll keep his ass clean enough to eat off until the next time he fucks up, when he'll just find yet another way." She sounds frustrated by her vaulted honesty coming back to bite her in her own sullied posterior. Dirtied up by the scary prospect of having to take over reluctant Brian defending duties. That should be a full-time job for some poor sucker. Oh wait, that position has already been filled. By me.

"There's nothing to defend," I say defensively.

"I believe that as much as I believe that you actually know what you're upset about. Because I don't think you do." She rests her aching feet on the coffee table in front of her and rubs her neck instead. She seems to always be tense about something.

"Does everyone but me know what I'm supposed to be thinking?" I raise my voice a little too loudly and she shushes me with her finger. Once Gus is out for the night, you don't want to wake him up. He can be a cranky, moody little shit. Like father, like son. I stand instead, as if the breathing required for pacing around is somehow going to lessen my tone of voice.

"How do you feel about Lindsay and Vic? Or Debbie, or maybe even your own mother?" she asks, plainly.

"Huh?" My throat tickles again. Maybe I'm coming down with something. Yeah, something otherwise known as muteidiotitis. "I love them, they're great people," with the possible exception of my mother, at the moment.

"Did you think it was wrong when Lindsay stayed home to take care of Gus while I worked to support them?"

"No, of course not. She was taking care of your son. What's your point?"

"And Vic? Do you think less of him because Debbie has to pay most of his bills?"

"He's sick," I point out to a totally deaf ear who seemingly only wants to hear the sound of her own voice.

"What about when Michael gives Debbie a little something to help out?" she presses on, oblivious to my very reasonable response. "Or when your father was supporting your mother while she took care of you? Did you think there was something wrong with that?"

I drop back down on the couch. Wallowing is easier to do with as little physical exertion and effort as possible. "That's totally different."

"Welcome to the world Justin." She takes on her mother's tone. The one she uses when she's describing some new feat Gus has managed to achieve. "You're not the first person who's ever had to rely on someone and you certainly won't be the last. There's nothing wrong with it. There's no shame in it. There's also nothing wrong with Brian wanting to be the one to take care of you, the same way I want to take care of Lindsay or Debbie wants to take care of Vic. We do it because it's something we want to do, not to punish anyone or belittle them."

"Can I get off this ride? Because it's spinning a little too quickly." She shakes her head no. I figured as much. "It's more than that, so much more. They all get a say in their own lives. I didn't even get that much." I can still feel a twinge of pain start in my chest at the mere recollection.

"That's good, now you're getting somewhere. You're not upset because he paid your way and you feel dependent on him. That's just money. I'm not even sure you're upset because he lied to you. You want to know what I think it is?"

I have a feeling I'm going to hear it regardless of whether I actually want to, but I think I might. "What?"

"Do you know how much I argued with Lindsay when she said she wanted Brian to be the father of the child she wanted to carry? The fucking asshole, tweaked out whore of Babylon? As a father? She had to be kidding me. She was totally convinced he was the only one. She wouldn't even hear about any other alternatives. It was Brian or nothing."

"I'm not following."

"It made me feel like I was being drummed out of my own future. It was bad enough that I couldn't share the experience of having a child with her. It was so much worse when she wouldn't even let me try to be as involved as I could get by letting me be a part of the decision making process. Her mind was made up and I was no part of it, no matter how much I argued. So I just caved and let her get her way. Then it was just between the two of them and I was just watching from the sidelines," she recounts as sadly as Mel is ever going to get. I feel for her. I feel her. I am her.

"Why'd you go through with it?" For the first time in a week, I feel almost human. I'd forgotten what it felt like to have an interest in something besides myself and my feelings. I forgot compassion somewhere along the way. I feel the knot in my chest subside.

"Because I wanted a baby, and a family and a life with her, as much as she did. After a while, it stopped being important how we got one, just as long as we did." I can see that, every time I see her look at Gus. He's hers in every way that matters. She's the kind of parent every child deserves. It's too bad so many of us don't get them.

"Even though you had no say?" I ask, incredulously. Brian would never tell me this kind of stuff. I would have never known any of this. Then again, I'm not sure he does either.

"Why do you think you're so upset? It's not about Brian. I'm not saying he's totally blameless, because he's not and if you never spoke to him again, I'd throw you the biggest fucking party you ever saw," she chuckles a depressed, pathetic little sound. One I recognize immediately. "You're upset at yourself. For choosing someone you're so willing to compromise for and you're so willing to share just to have a part of them. For putting yourself second and putting him first. For putting up with so much shit you never thought in a million years you'd ever have to deal with, because you would never let yourself wind up in these contorted positions that we find ourselves." The soft dim light of the room casts a looming shadow above her head. The darker it is, the easier it is to let yourself be blinded.

"It doesn't make any sense. We don't make any sense," I admit to her... to myself. "But I don't make any sense without him either. And I can't stand that." I hesitate for a moment, letting the air float into my mouth and carry the words out of me. "I'm not sure I make any sense with him. I'm not sure he'd even let me. But I know he doesn't make any without me. What am I supposed do with that? Leave him walking in circles for the rest of his life? I can't just follow him around them. I can't." I won't.

"So, don't. Do what I could never figure out how to do. Make him follow you. It's the least that asshole could do." Her voice is stern, but her face is soft somehow. She's had years of practice at convincing herself she's a hardass bitch until that one person who totally unravels her just comes along and undoes all that hard work. She can't hide. No more than I can. "I'll say this... For whatever reason," she throws her hands up at the ceiling in defeat "it's like you and Gus have become his fucking salvation. Lucky bastard that he is. The two things he doesn't actually fuck up all the time. Maybe only 95% of the time." A disgusted snort interrupts her admission. "You're the reasons everyone can forgive him and excuse him. He must have a heart somewhere if he can care about the two of you and try to do the right thing by you."

"You think he cares about me?" I sound like a stranger to my own ears. A very desperate and swiftly fading stranger whose wallow box is dissipating and emptying me of any reserves I had left.

"I think he's lucky to have you." I don't need supersonic superpowers to hear what she refuses to verbalize. 'In his own fucked up way.'

"Do you ever regret not pushing more?"

"Then I'd regret having Gus. Never in a million years. No matter who his father is." I think it's the nicest thing she'll ever come close to saying about Brian.

"You think it's wrong of me to regret pushing too much?"

"No. He deserved it! You should have pushed him out the window." She plants us both firmly back in reality. Her with the arrows, me with the armor and shield, ready to stand tall and defend at will. "Just be careful. Know what you're really fighting for and why you're fighting for it. If the war is worth it, if the outcome is something you want and it outweighs what it takes to get there, than you need to choose your battles. You can't fight them all at once, and some of them aren't worth fighting at all." 

"What about the ones that are?"

"You dig your hands in and you start slinging until he surrenders," she states matter of factly with a shrug of her shoulders.

I feel my fingers dig around my mind for the discarded foundation of the architecture of my destiny that I'd tossed aside so carelessly. It's a soggy mess now, but a little time and a little sun should dry it out and strengthen it right up. "When do I know if I'm compromising too much?"

"When it's not worth it anymore? I don't know, you just do."

"Any other pearls of wisdom?" I smile. I don't even have to think about it. I just do it, because it comes naturally.

The loud clang of the bell ringing several times in a row disturbs the first bit of peace I've had in days.

"Never argue with a lawyer?" she grins, as she runs for the door.

I close my eyes and say a little prayer of thanks that I won't have to be the one to put Gus back down to bed.

"Is your finger broken, why the fuck are you ringing the bell so many times? My son is sleeping!"

"What the fuck are you doing home? Lindsay told me to get my ass over here because that moron babysitter you hired was about to leave my son to take care of himself. You were supposed to be in court."

I freeze in mid-prayer as their voices get closer. God's got a funny way of answering.

"That was three hours ago!"

"I just got the message."

How not unusual.

The voices stop abruptly upon entrance to the living room. I twist my head to stare at the wall. If I sit still long enough, maybe he'll mistake me for a statue and ignore me.

"I guess they don't get cell reception in the backroom at Babylon," Mel cracks.

"I was at a client dinner. I didn't recognize the school's number, so I didn't pick up," he defends himself. I don't have to look to know that Melanie is but a mere annoyance to him at this point. I'm the main attraction. I can feel his eyes travel the length of my neck, and rest when they reach the back of my head. "Is that Gus?"

We all hear the commotion going on above our heads. Even with his small feet, he makes some very loud noises when he stomps.

"Great, just fucking great Brian. Now he'll never go back to bed. Thanks! As usual you create the messes, and everyone else has to clean them up."

I hear her footsteps pad their way up the stairs. Still, I refuse to move. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of being the first to budge.

"What are you doing here?" Maybe I imagine the sort of breathless way he asks, like he's been kicked in the gut. Maybe not.

"Waiting for the world to tilt back on its axis," I ruminate, quietly.

"I guess you were the one who came to the rescue." My head jars enough to stare straight in front of me, enough to look out of the corner of my eye and determine his proximity. Or an escape route, whichever I need to know first.

"It was an emergency. They called and I came."

"Glad you were around," he speaks quietly as if to apologize for his rude entrance. Into this room? Into my life? I don't know anymore. "Once again you save my ass."

I pick the skin of my cuticle for phantom dirt. Cleanliness is next to godliness and obviously I need to be on my best behavior if I'm ever going to get another prayer answered again. "He was asking for you. Wanted to know why you weren't with me."

"I was at a meeting."

"I heard." I nod my head, distracted by the overwhelming desire to turn around and see him for myself. See him look distraught and disheveled and unable to function without me. But I don't, because I know he looks immaculate and no one would ever know there was a thing wrong, if there even was. He would never let them see it. Not even me.

"How are you feeling? You didn't look so good when I left that morning." I, on the other hand, am another story. I may as well be wearing a billboard.

"I'm fine. I was just tired."

"Of me," he lets it slip out before he can pretend he didn't even think it, much less speak it. My head follows its own course to finally glance at him. I mean to do it briefly, but my eyes are drawn to his impeccable suit, his perfect hair, his clean nails. If I walked past him on the street and I didn't know him, I'd never see a single hair out of place. But something is clearly very wrong with him. "I hear tomorrow is your moving day." Of course he'd know that. Everyone on Liberty Avenue must know it by now.

"Yeah, there's not much to take with me. Most of it's going back to my mother's house. What wasn't yours was hers anyway."

He reaches both hands in his pocket and fidgets around, debating whether or not to sit down next to me. My body moves itself over a couple of inches and he takes the invitation I didn't even realize I was offering. "Talking to her?"

"Not really."

"You should. It wasn't her fault. I practically had to force her into it. It was my fault. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame me."

"I'll talk to her eventually, just not right now. Besides how can I blame you? You have no responsibility to me. The only responsibility you have is to yourself. Right?"

"What can I say? Rules are meant to be broken," he states, casually. Too casually.

I look at him. He looks at me. I try to crane my neck away with absolutely no success.

"It'd be mass chaos without any kind of order."

"That's why the chaos theory is based on unpredictability."

"Chaos theory is based on unpredictability in ordered patterns. There has to be some structure before there can be exceptions." I'm suddenly glad I paid attention in high school. It was easy, I had fat, balding 60 year old Mrs. Turner. They don't teach this kind of stuff at PIFA.

"And I just clip your wings every time you try to disrupt the flow," he leans his chin on my shoulder, his jaw setting right on the joint. It's uncomfortable but I don't push him off me.

I rub my eyes and laugh slightly at the total randomness of this conversation. "You can't control everything."

"So chaos it is," his breath tickles my ear.

"Chaos theory. Not chaos," I correct him. His small laugh vibrates in my inner ear and shakes my brain all about.

"I'm actually kind of glad you're here. Saves me a call." I turn to face him, careful not to shrug him off my shoulder and I wait for him to follow behind my silence and fill it up with words. "Can you do me a favor?" He lifts both of his eyebrows at the same time and closes his eyes, letting out a deep exhale of breath before he backs his head away a couple of inches.

"What?"

"There's something... I need..." he rubs his brow line and searches for just the right question to keep me in place and not send me running. I must look ready to bolt at any minute. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me sometimes. "I want to show you something. Would you come with me, if I asked?"

"Are you asking?"

He licks his bottom lip and regains his composure. His body regains control of itself. That's what was wrong, he was all loose limbs and unstructured support. Brian never relaxes long enough to do that. He's always defensive, his muscles are always ready for an attack, even when he's asleep. "I'm asking."

I bow my head and consider the offer. I could say no and he'd let me go. I could say no and he'd make me go anyway. I could say yes and leave when I want. I could say yes and be stuck at his mercy until he let me leave. I could hold off and wait until I'm ready.

"Okay."

"No questions?" he asks, surprised.

I surprise myself when I come up blank. "No. I trust you. You might not trust me, but I trust you. You lead. I'll follow." It's the only way to get him to move in my direction.

"Don't..." He holds his fingertips to my chest, to prevent me from moving off the couch. "Just come with me. There's something you need to see. I'll let you go if you don't want to stay or don't want to see it when we get there. I won't like it very much, but I'll do it. It's totally up to you. Just know that." "Let's go." I rise first and walk past him. He hesitates. I know this, because I know him and I don't have to look at him to know these things. "Brian, are you coming?"

"Right behind you."

I walk to the foyer and open the front door to a warm night, not uncomfortable but not cool either. I swallow a deep breath of air and he closes the door behind us. We both stand for a minute just taking the quiet in before we embark on whatever strange destination he has planned.

I look at him and he looks at me and we descend the stairs of the porch wordlessly. Our patterns might not make all that much sense together. They have their own rhyme and reason. The only thing I know for certain is that we make even less sense apart.


	49. Platinum I

I yank the door once, twice, three times before I actually manage to open it wide enough to walk through. It must be jammed. I should look into having that repaired. My arms feel like two squishy containers of jelly. I have to stop working out so aggressively. I've had too much time on my hands this past week. I put too much strain on my arms. That's why it was so hard to get the door open.

Who the fuck am I kidding?

I flip the lightswitch on and the loft comes alive in all of its stark, bright coldness.

"Are you going to stand there or are you going to come in?" I watch his curious expression. His eyes are so wide, it feels like one of those cartoon images where the eyeballs pop out of the character's sockets.

"This is what you wanted to show me?" Okay, so I admit it wasn't the greatest surprise in the world. I'm not quite sure where he was expecting me take him, but I am sure this was the last place he had in mind.

"There's something here that you need to see. Close the door."

He shuffles his feet absently and manages to take a couple of steps beyond the doorframe. At least it's forward progression. I didn't think I'd get him on the elevator, much less all the way up here.

"You couldn't bring me whatever you wanted to show me?" He tugs the door closed with one, loud crashing sound. He's stronger than he looks.

"Actually no I couldn't." I take my suit jacket off and loosen my tie. It's been a long day. I expected it to be over hours ago, but the best laid plans never seem to work themselves out when I make them. It's good that he's here. If I avoided this any longer I may have missed my chance altogether. I'm not that great at making plans, but I've never had any complaints about my timing.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

It probably wasn't. I don't have to go through with this. I can show him something totally tasteless and guarantee that it all ends tonight. Or I could show him the truth and take my chances.

I feel an urge to head straight for tasteless.

"Come into the bedroom." I undo the buckle on my belt and the buttons on my cuffs as I walk on unsteady feet towards the last place I ever imagined myself dreading. For some idiotic reason I expect to hear the sound of his feet following me, but I hear nothing. I should have known better. I look out into the open confines of the living room and see that he hasn't moved an inch. The look on his face is almost comical. If not for the fact that neither of us is laughing, this would almost seem funny. "It's not what you think."

"I think I'd rather stay out here. Just bring me whatever you want to show me."

"I can't do that. You have to come see for yourself." I won't beg. I don't beg, for anyone. Not even for him. I swallow a breath, turn my back and just decide to hope like hell. That doesn't cost me any dignity.

It takes an eternity, or quite possibly ten seconds, but it feels like the longest ten seconds of my life, before I hear the first couple of hesitant steps making their way towards me. Working on automatic pilot, I follow my routine, flip the lights on, kick my shoes off, pull my socks off, divest myself of my shirt and tie. I stop at the pants. Maybe that's not such a good idea for the moment.

He appears on the final step and practically adheres himself to the wall. Technically he's in the bedroom, if you want to talk inches, but he's as far away from me in this room as he can physically make himself. I don't necessarily blame him. I'm fairly sure I'm going to disappoint him again. Right this minute, down the line, I don't know. But I'm certain it'll happen eventually. It's better for him if he keeps his distance.

"So where is it?"

I walk to the end of the bed and sit on the edge. I must have worked my legs too hard as well, because suddenly they feel like two tree stumps. I need to take the pressure off my feet. I can't hold myself up. "Open the bottom drawer." I point to the chest at the base of the glass slats.

He looks between the chest and my face, uncertain if he should go along with this. I want to scream "please trust me" until I'm blue in the face, but I don't know if he would even if I did. Another thing I don't blame him for. He sighs, and my shoulders relax. He can't help himself. He doesn't do stiff upper lip very well. It's sort of endearing.

I watch him handle the drawer as if it were a precious work of art. "It's empty," he half questions, half answers himself.

"Open the next drawer."

He does as I ask and I grip the sheet in my hand. There's no turning back.

"So is this one. What the fuck is going on Brian? Is this some kind of joke you're pulling?"

I really shouldn't plan things beforehand. I spend way too much time wiping my face free of the embarrassment afterwards when it all blows up there.

"They're yours." His face twists into a question mark. "When you took your stuff, I never put anything in them."

Some kind of light seems to dawn on him, but I can see his brain pull himself back a few paces before he gets ahead of himself. I almost want to rush him towards the finish line and save myself the need to push us both there. I'll gladly let him drag me past it, if that's what he wants. "Why would you do that?"

"I'd figured... I guess I thought you'd need them again one day." I rub my temples and push back this unnerving feeling just under the surface of my skin. I feel fear. I refuse to kowtow to fucking fear. "It's time for you to come home." I say it with such precision and clarity that I don't leave a breath of a space for hesitation or dissension on either of our parts.

I'm not very sure of much in life, but I am sure that I will never let myself live a life built on fear. I've always promised myself that.

"I think I need..." I reach up instinctively, in case he decides to pass out on me. But that's not what he seems to mean. "I need a minute."

He turns his back to me and for some ridiculous reason I imagine that he's talking to the angel on one shoulder and fighting with the devil on the other. Only he's standing and I'm sitting five feet away, so there's nothing sitting on either of his shoulders. He pivots around so quickly, I really do think he's about to lose his footing and I feel my body lunge off the end of the bed. He reaches down for me, apparently imagining that I'm the one falling off the bed. We meet somewhere in the middle and draw ourselves up slowly.

"Are you alright?" I ask him, even though we're both standing perfectly upright.

"I'm fine. What about you?"

"I'm good."

"I did something for you. I want you to do something for me." He finds the chest behind him and takes a seat. "Sit down." He pats the empty space to the right of him. At this moment, I think I'd do just about anything he asked. Except beg. I don't beg. I just hope mercilessly.

"What do you want me to do?"

He offers me his right hand, palm side up. Does he want me to read it? "Hold my hand."

Okay, there are two things I don't do. I don't beg and I don't hold hands, especially on command. "No."

His shoulders drop a few inches, and he exercises his jaw, rolling his eyes skyward, seemingly doing a mental countdown to calm the urge to slap me upside the head. "Just fucking hold it. I'm not trying to initiate you into the Secret Society of Really Nelly Queers. Your dick will still be intact."

I shove my fingers between his as forcefully as I can. He doesn't bend them all backwards. That's a good sign. "Now what?"

"Be quiet!" He zones out, closing his eyes, his breath rides on a low hum. I think he's spent too much time with Ben, or too much time in a drugged out stupor when I wasn't around.

"Are we meditating?"

"We aren't doing anything. You are being quiet, while I figure out how to kill you and then bury the body."

"Make sure you bury me in the black Armani." I feel my fingers relax around his knuckles. I'm grateful he's even speaking to me. So much so that I don't even care how melodramatic the entire scene is.

"You really fucking hurt me." His voice is hollow and distant.

I think I'd take melodrama over reality every single time. There's no hiding behind reality. Strip it of all pretense and there it is, just laid out right in front of you.

"Now you want me to just come back and pretend like it never happened." His eyes trace some imaginary pattern on the floor. "I can't do that again Brian. I've already tried to forget too much." I look at some random spot on the floor and a tiny pang of pain sears my eyeballs. I squeeze them shut for a brief second and it disappears from my consciousness. I can make it do that sometimes. "I know you can't talk about a lot of things...," he hesitates. "So I don't want you talk. I want you to listen, and if I hit a nerve or you get uncomfortable or whatever, I want you to squeeze my hand. Can you do that for me?"

I rub the skin between his thumb and index finger.

"Good."

"Can I say one thing?" I interrupt him and he pauses, making his entire body a stiff, unmovable force. "I never meant for you to get hurt. I'm sorry you did. I shouldn't have...." It's a whisper of a breath, the pain behind my eyes narrowing my focus. I can't think about breathing correctly. I close my eyes and it only seems to come closer. I guess I expect him to dissolve into my arms, but his hand only seems to grow heavier in my own.

"I never really thanked you for everything you've done for me," he guides us gently out of dangerous territory. My fingers squirm restlessly. I don't want to hear this. I want to hear how I fucked it all up and what I can do to make it not so fucked up. "So I'm thanking you now." I brush my thumb over his nail lightly. "But I don't think I really ask that much of you either. It just seems like a lot to you." I pull his arm closer to my knee.

"It's not a lot." It's really not. Sometimes it just feels Herculean to me.

"It is when everyone else expects absolutely nothing from you. I can't do that. That's not who I am. Does that bother you?" I don't know how to respond. If I squeeze his hand, maybe he'll think it does, but if I don't, then I'm admitting something I'm not sure I'm ready for him to know yet.

I chance the risk and hold my hand steady.

"I want you to stop assuming that I don't have a mind of my own. I know what I want and I want you... to just let me love you and let me worry about the rest." I nearly drain the blood from his hand. "I don't want to feel guilty about it. I don't want to be ashamed and I don't want it to be a fight every fucking time I try." I feel his tense fingers grip some pulse point that seems to relax my hand into submission. "Maybe only half the time," he chuckles.

"When you fuck up, which God only knows you will, and when I fuck up, which I will. Just be honest about it." His tone is light, but his message isn't. "Just keep trying. Effort will get you everywhere."

"What do I get out of this?" I joke.

"Me." Everything. "It's the only thing I have. Is that enough for you?"

I pound every last bit of hope I have left into the death grip I have on his hand. He uses his left hand to pull my fingers off one at a time and slips his hand back into his lap.

"Every time you squeezed my hand Brian, you squeezed the hand that I couldn't even use a year ago." He twirls his fingers in midair and I swear I see ten fingers where there are only five. It must be the lack of air in this room making me dizzy and seeing double. "Look at what I can do with it now. It's not going to fall apart because of a little pressure. I'm not gonna fall apart. I can take care of myself. You have to know that."

"So what do you need me for?" I never really considered that. I never imagined there would be a time when he didn't need me. If he doesn't need me then why would he even bother?

"Who else would put up with me and all my drama?" he asks, breezily.

He's such a little fucker. I wouldn't have it any other way.

"In that case, I expect some things from you too." His face registers surprise. "You didn't think I would just let you come waltzing back in, did you?"

"You sitting around waiting for me to come home? No, didn't think you were."

"I expect you to pick a couple of bills every month and pay them. I don't care what they are, just figure out which ones fit in your budget, make a check out and make sure they're paid." I cross my legs and try to think of a spur of the moment list of expectations. Somehow 'just show up with your bags and let me help you with them' doesn't seem like an appropriate response for the non-begging, non hand-holding type. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"As long as you're not calling those 900 numbers and expect me to pay for it."

"You're also going to clean up after yourself because I'm tired of picking up your shit." That seems reasonable enough. "You also have to have the Jeep cleaned at least twice a month."

"What the fuck does the Jeep have anything to do with moving back in?" he presses.

"Nothing. I just want a clean Jeep." He wipes the grin off my face by shoving his sturdy hand right in the center. I grab it off of me and refuse to let go. "One of those full body massages once a week, that would really be nice. Oh and the tiles in the shower. Make sure there's no mildew on them."

"What you're looking for is a personal slave. I'm sure you could hire one out for a reasonable price," he manages to grab my gut and I yank his arm so that we're almost chest to chest.

"One other thing," I grow a little more serious than I intended. "You don't let yourself love anybody else. I need you to not do that for me."

I see the faint trace of regret fill his eyes momentarily. He doesn't dwell on it, he simply nods his head.

"Same for me." I can't promise much, but that I know I can do.

"Including Michael?" He detaches himself from me. I wait. I can't think to do anything else. "I don't mean don't love him at all. I just mean..." I know what he means. I don't need to hear the words. "I don't want him to have a key anymore. I don't want anybody else to have a key." That he doesn't have... "Or even an invitation. This place is just for the two of us. Find someplace else."

I pull his mouth to mine and bathe him with my tongue. I have this odd addiction to having my tongue in his mouth. It's unbelievably warm in there and almost always open. I feel the pressure pooling in my chest. A tight, constricted pull that vibrates into my stomach and resonates throughout the rest of my body. He pulls me by my waistband, walking us backwards to the end of the bed.

"Okay," I concede. He doesn't ask for much. Sometimes everything, but it wouldn't be a lot to anyone else. Just me.

"Are we done now, because I'm horny as hell."

"You mean you don't want to discuss china patterns and matching linen?" I say sarcastically and push his shoulders down on the bed, working my way up his chest.

"Maybe later," he moans through the deepest haze of lust.

"Maybe never," I distract him with my tongue drawing circles around his nipple.

"Well after a while we'll get so bored with each other we'll have to discuss it, just to have something new to talk about." He's not easily distracted.

"Justin, do me a favor?" He lifts his head up to peer down at me. "Hold the conversation."

He reaches his hand down to dance near my face and I let him trace the steps I need to follow to find my way home.


	50. Platinum II

"Oh God, not this conversation again."

"What conversation? You always tell me to shut up or you run away. We never get to the actual conversing part of the conversation." I take a toke on the joint he passes to me, letting the smoke fill my lungs. This time he can't move an inch. I have him trapped between my legs, his back splayed all over my chest, one arm wrapped around his waist. He's helpless for once in his life. Not that he couldn't flip me off the bed with one toss, because I'm sure he could do that even with me behind him, but he wouldn't dare try.

Now this is my idea of celebrating the day I became a man in every official, legal, and practical capacity. I am no longer anyone else's responsibility. If I want to fuck, suck and toke until the sun rises and I can no longer be sure my dick is attached to my body, I can. That's just what I intend to do. I'm also totally responsible for any mistakes I might make along the way, including the one that might get me my dick handed back to me in my hand if I push this conversation any further. Because I can deny it all I want, but take away all the intellectualizing and it all comes back to the cock. It's an amazing tool. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be where I am. If I didn't like it so much, I wouldn't be who I am. If it fails me, I don't get what I want. If it works, I can get almost anything. I can work a cock, his, mine... like no one else. That might be shallow but it's true.

I giggle and wrap my legs around his torso a little tighter so that I can dangle my toes near the head of his very naked, very willing cock.

"What's so funny?" He leans his head into my arm to try and catch a glimpse of my face which is lit up in more ways than one. "No more smoking for you, or maybe you're just sweet on me." He drawls slowly using his mouth to great effect to draw out every word and gives me a sweet but surly smile. He's a perversion of nature. No single person should be allowed to be that sexy without trying.

"No," I laugh again. "I don't like you at all, especially when you're avoiding the question." I inhale the last of our second shared joint and stab out the remainder in the ashtray.

"You don't like me but you loooovvveee me." He closes his eyes and relaxes, molding himself onto my skin.

"I don't love you." I poke his nipple with my finger. "I tolerate you. Love is for dykes and straight people, right? Just like marriage."

"I tolerate you too." He pats my hand condescendingly. He's such a shit. A very relaxed, contented, satiated, beautiful shit.

"Will you answer the question?" I feather my toes near the bulb of his dick. That should get his attention.

"If you put your dirty, disgusting feet anywhere near my cock, you'll be wheeling around in a wheelchair for the next few months after I break both of your legs."

"What does it matter? You didn't seem to mind my mouth being there, and that has, like, ten thousand more germs." I seize his shaft between my feet and move them up and down in torturously slow rhythm. He's really not going anywhere anytime soon, now.

"Hey, if you're interested in putting your mouth back there once your feet have been there, then by all means, go for it." I hadn't thought of that. Doesn't matter, that's what showers were invented for. I still have control over the cock.

"You just don't like being at my mercy," I fill in the blanks. "Now stop avoiding and answer the question."

"I am not answering the question," his hips quiver against my thighs as I work him over with my feet. It's a precarious, painful workout for my toes. Who know your feet could hold so much power?

"Christ Brian! I'm not asking you to get matching platinum cock rings. I don't want to marry you. I just want to know why you don't believe in marriage. That's it. Coast clear." I work my feet a little faster and his breathing gets a little more choppy, while my ankles get a little more weak and my toes a little more numb. "And don't tell me it's because it's for everyone but you. That's not an answer."

"Because..." he lets out a low, rumbling moan that runs right up my spine. "It's a bullshit concept that has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with money."

"What?" I heave my feet off his cock and press on his thighs instead.

"Why'd you stop?" He sounds like a three-year-old who had his lollipop taken away.

"I'm getting toe-lock." I sit up a little further and he reluctantly shimmies his back to move along with my chest and keep his body pillow, me, in place. "How can you say marriage is all about money?"

"Uh, Justin..." he points down to his place of worship, his mind too clouded with lust and smoke to think rationally. Just as I thought, it all comes back to the cock. I could probably get pretty much anything I wanted out of him right this very minute. "Would you like to help me out here?"

I lean my head on his shoulder and slide my hands down his waist, my fingers curling in his pubic hair. I whisper in his ear, "picture Melanie's box."

He slaps both of my hands away. "That'll do it." I expect him to shrug me off entirely. Instead he does something peculiar. He inhales a few breaths of air and reaches for my right hand to lace his fingers through and squeezes my palm into his own. I understand. "Marriage is an excuse to throw a ridiculously overpriced party to celebrate yourself and then spend the rest of your life paying yourself back with tax breaks. That's all it amounts to."

"Marriage is a commitment. It's a sacrament. You're so cynical." That doesn't actually bother me, the whole marriage thing. I really don't think I could see myself going through with whatever the queer equivalent of a wedding is. But I kind of like the forever part.

"And you're so naive. What the fuck do I give a shit about a sacrament from some hypocritical house of worship that doesn't even recognize my existence?" Now I'm pretty sure I know why he's never answered the question before and why I never pressed him on it. "That's the one thing these backward laws have protected us from, making the same asinine mistakes as the rest of the population," he laughs inwardly. I feel the need for my third joint coming on as he rubs his thumb over my palm.

"It's not about religion or legalities, Brian. It's about saying I want you around and I'm committed to keeping you around. I want your face to be the last one I see when I'm old and gray." I lean my neck into a propped up pillow for support and run the fingertips of my free hand up and down his arm.

"So why do you need a piece of paper to do that? If something is durable it'll endure on its own."

I think about it for a minute, because I'm not really sure. Who's to say you do need one? Maybe Brian is right, maybe it is all bullshit. "Because then you can't just walk out when it gets too tough. You can't just give up, you have to go through a whole process before you can be rid of each other and maybe in that process you figure out that you don't want to go after all." It's the best I can do.

"Don't kid yourself Justin, you can always walk out and just pretend like some shitty piece of paper doesn't exist," he remarks, passively. The joints must be taking their toll.

I think there are some things in life that just aren't meant to be explained, and the concept of marriage, as flaky as it might be, is one of them. You know you're doing it for the right reasons when you do it. It's not something that can be reasoned into. It's not a practical or legal decision, or a signature on a piece of paper. It's a decision you make with your heart. The paper is just the proof. I don't want any kind of ceremony or ring or any of that stuff, that's not me. I want the irrational proof that this whole thing matters. That we matter. I know we do, he knows we do even when he's knee deep in denial, but sometimes you just want some kind of tangible proof. I open my mouth to argue my case but decide against it. Sometimes my thoughts are better left in my brain. No one can talk me out of them there.

"I'm hungry," I declare.

"Half a puff and you get the munchies." He stops for a beat. "Ugh, I can't even say munchies and not picture Melanie's box now. Thanks!" He peels his back off of me and I laugh at the back of his head. He's so easy to annoy.

"I'm in serious need of food. I haven't eaten in forever," I remind him. He should know, he saw the last thing I consumed all over the bathroom a couple of days ago. "Make me something to eat," I whine pathetically. I have about ten more minutes left in this birthday. I intend to milk them for all they're worth.

"Eat my ass," he grins over his shoulder. Gladly.

"Eh, I already did that. I can't swallow your ass so that's not going to do anything for my hunger." I fake a yawn and swing my legs dramatically off the bed. "Do we have anything to eat in this house?" I wander down the stairs in search of something to consume.

"Debbie sent us home with some stuff. I put it in the fridge. It's the only thing in there, you can't really miss it."

I hear his voice trailing behind me and I turn to ask him if he wants to join me. I find him stretching his limbs to the ceiling and rolling his neck around. Fuck the food. I could feed on my lust for days and never come up for air. I can't be bothered to waste my time heating anything up so I take out the cake instead. I think it's one of my eyeballs, or maybe it's an ear.

"Wanna eat me?" I smile, exposing every single one of my teeth and lift the plate to tempt him.

"I'll just have some... milk," he rolls his tongue between his lips and my stomach growls in response. I'm sure he can hear it from way over there. "Come over here and open up some of these presents. Let's see if you got any good loot."

"Let's do it tomorrow. I'm tired." I grab the milk container, two glasses and a fork. Working in a diner comes in handy as I balance my way delicately towards the couch. He stands imperially over the stack of presents, sifting out the wheat from the chaff with his foot. "It was a long day."

"You're not the least bit curious about what you got?" he lifts a surprised eyebrow in my direction.

"I got what I wanted." I sit down on the floor arranging my plate and the glasses, ignoring the couch. The thought of sticking my bare sweaty ass on that fabric just isn't very appealing. I watch him select a couple of boxes, his poster and the frame from Melanie and Lindsay.

"What did you want?" He wriggles his toes under my ass and I move to give him room to sit behind me. It's his turn to trap me in place. He puts down my stack of gifts and takes the milk container out of my hand, stopping me from pouring the second glass. He encases both of my hands in his own and tickles my neck with a few sparse kisses.

"I wanted you to be there and you were. I didn't want it to be a disaster and it wasn't. That was pretty much it. The Jeep was a nice bonus."

"So the poster didn't disappoint you?" he tries to search out some imagined disappointment from my end.

"It was pretty cool actually. No wonder I couldn't figure your riddle out," I smile genuinely. I know he thinks I must have built up his present in my head. Maybe a little part of me did, but the bigger part of me is used to not having big expectations where Brian is concerned. It wasn't a big shock that he would go out of his way to make giving me a Jeep no big deal. He'd never admit to that being a huge deal. I won't make a huge deal out of it either for his sake. We can just pretend he was thoughtless and uncaring and only gave me a cheap poster. It'll make him feel better and save us the embarrassing task of explaining to everyone else the significance of giving up the Jeep. Once you start speaking Kinneyese, the rest of it just kind of falls into place.

I feel his stomach make waves on my back as he inhales a few more times. "Well, let's get the thing mounted so that you can hang it. I know you're dying to."

"Really?" I say it with a little more excitement than I mean to. I didn't think he would really let me just hang the thing wherever I wanted. I thought he was just pacifying Lindsay. I motion to climb out from between his legs. He nudges my spine forward a little and lets go of my left hand very slowly, but refuses to move his legs. "Brian?" His eyes roam tensely over the packages next to us. "Brian," I repeat, softly.

"Hmmm?" He sucks on his bottom lip, his throat responding to me, but his attention totally wrapped up in the floor.

"You gotta let me go. I can't do this with you hanging all over me," I pry my remaining hand out of his gently and my stomach turns. I don't know if something is wrong, but he looks through me so fiercely, I feel a tremble start in my toes and explode through my scalp. "I'll come back. I promise."

He nods his head discreetly and shoves his leg out of the way. I crawl over, suddenly embarrassed that I'm swinging my assets freely in the air. Maybe it's not all about the cock. I sit Indian style, wrapping my feet under my thighs and set out to unwrap the precious frame that I wasn't allowed to touch back at the house. It's chilly in this apartment, but not chilly enough for the goosepimples that form on my back. I can feel his stare pulsate through the entire course of my veins, every last twisted knot of them.

"Did you want to help?" I turn and offer him my hand to pull him onto his knees alongside me.

"What do you want me to do?" He looks around, sizing up the possible ways he might help, feeling totally useless.

"Unspool the poster," I instruct him.

He sets out to his task and leaves me to finish taking off the remainder of the wrapping paper. It's a beautiful mahogany frame that will look awesome with the brick background. I look around the room trying to determine the best place for it, still slightly shocked that he's letting me go through with this. Maybe I'll put it on the wall behind his computer. It'll totally ruin the flow of his space though. Somehow I don't think he'll mind.

"So where'd you get that picture," I chatter mindlessly, turning the frame over to unscrew the back.

"I don't really know. It was on my digital camera. Someone must have taken it without realizing it." He twists the poster in the opposite direction, trying to get it to lay steady.

"It looked like an old picture," I use my fingernail to dig into the remaining screw.

"Probably is. I just left it at the office," he shrugs his shoulders as if it was some meaningless forgetful thing he did once upon a time. I'll let him have that one.

I lift the back off the frame, expecting to lift the cardboard from the glass, only there's something stuck between the backing and the cardboard, a long white envelope with a very slight red ribbon around the center. "Brian?" He makes busy work of flattening the corners of the poster and pays me no attention. On purpose. "Brian, what is this?"

He feigns disinterest as he looks over casually and peruses the envelope that my fingers refuse to touch. It's too thin to have explosives, rationally I know this. Irrationally I think there could be razors waiting to slice my fingers off if I touch it. "I don't know. Why don't you open it and find out?" He leans back on his haunches, his eyes wide and expectant.

I feel like I'm going to screw this up somehow. I'm not sure what I'll be screwing up, but somehow I know that I will. Either by blubbering before I even know whether I have something to cry about, or by getting my hopes up so high about God only knows what, only to have them come crashing down so hard, that I cry anyway. Maybe I'm still suffering from dehydration. My mind races through the possibilities and comes up with one answer, over and over. Italy. We're going to Italy. That's why he got me a poster of David. That's why he didn't freak out when I said I needed to get out of Pittsburgh. That's why he wouldn't let me open this in front of everyone. I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner.

I start laughing maniacally, "Italia" singsonging through my brain at warp speed.

"You didn't even open it yet." I don't care, it doesn't matter. I throw my arms around his neck and attack his face. "Justin," he pulls his head back, "open the envelope."

"I don't even have to," I practically yell the words and they reverberate off the walls.

"Oh, you know what it is?" he asks.

"I've got a pretty good idea." My nimble fingers tear through the top of the envelope. I shake it upside down, waiting for the Liberty Air tickets to fall at my feet. They never materialize. It's just paper. My breath gets caught in my chest and I feel everything settle back into place, my face practically dropping to the floor. I can't look back at him, too embarrassed by my own stupidity for assuming things I should never assume. Somehow I knew I'd fuck it all up.

"Look at me." I refuse. He pulls my chin in his direction. I look everywhere else but him, so he weaves his face around until he finally catches my eye. "What have you always told me you wanted? What did you want most tonight?"

I kick wrecking balls around my brain trying to pummel and pillage my way through every conversation we've ever had. He's so sincere, so fully here with me in this moment that my brain silences itself and some other part of me expels my answer out of me from nowhere. "You."

He reaches out for the scattered paper and puts it in my left hand, holding on for dear life to the right hand. "Here I am." I look down slowly, not sure I can really see through the blurry vision that threatens my eyes.

I read a bunch of legalese that I don't really understand, but I see his name and my name and it all looks very official and I must look as confused as he feels terrified.

"It's the Deed to this place. It's half yours. I had Melanie draw it up."

If I weren't already sitting on the floor, I would have fell on it. My mind is a total blank slate. I think I've reached some new serene plateau that totally transcends anything I could possibly feel if I were still on earth. What I feel... is a little dizzy. "Why, would you..." I can't even complete the thought. I'm not sure I'm even having a thought.

"Now you can't just... walk out."

I wait for a punchline, for something to pop out of the shadows and tell me this is a joke. All I get is a seriously beautifully sincere face waiting for me to approve.

I don't know what to say, so instead I say nothing. It's not often that I'm speechless, and this seems to make him nervous because he continues without taking a breath. "You made this place some kind of home. You know it's yours just as much as it's mine."

I feel like I might want to cry, but I won't, because I won't put him in that position, not after everything that he's done for me. I owe him that much. That seems funny somehow, owing him some kind of stoicism. But it's what he expects of me. He expects me to be strong enough to withstand and I have this overwhelming feeling that I will make myself a fortress and offer him shelter if that's what's necessary to forever keep this steady. I can't offer him much at the moment. I never really could. But I can offer him one thing.

"Would it be okay with you if I told you I loved you?" I do everything but shed actual tears, because I won't drown him in that flood.

"I know." I barely hear his response. He smiles a small smile.

I don't wait for him to respond in kind anymore. I don't have to.

"Would a hug be pushing it?" I move closer to him, wrapping my arm around his neck, not waiting for that response either. He pulls my chest to him, his fingers digging into some vital organ or other in my back. He squeezes my hand between our bodies, and I rub circles on the back of his neck. His weak spot. There's nothing weak about him. "You are so busted. Mr. I-don't-believe-in-birthdays."

The sound of his laughter spreads some kind of relief through all of my limbs and I feel free.

"Now I'll never be rid of you," he teases me.

"Nope." I pull my head back to lean on his forehead and look at him right in the eye. "Does this mean I've moved up from tolerated to maybe you might even like me a little?"

"Finish your toe-job and I'll let you know." It all comes back to the cock.

"Eat me first." I smile the broadest smile I've ever felt in my life and lean back for the piece of cake sitting on the coffee table. He doesn't let go of my hand.

"What are you going to do when I gain thirty pounds because you insist on feeding me right before bed?"

"There'll just be more of you to love," I snicker.

"Nice save," he nods his head with approval.

I spear the cake with the fork and break off the biggest piece I can manage without it toppling off of my unsteady, shaking hand. I didn't even realize I was shivering. "Open wide," I shovel the fork in his mouth. Half the cake makes it in, the other half almost drops out. I catch it from falling on his chest with my mouth, consuming the confection of his lip with my tongue.

I don't have to hear love to feel love. I don't have to speak a language I don't understand to hear what I already know to be true. I just have to listen.

What I can't hear, I feel around for.

I feel his breath caught in my mouth, waiting to be returned to him and I... exhale.

 

The End


End file.
